Data sovereignty is a practice, not a policy
I used to think of data sovereignty as an advocacy issue. It was something you put in position papers, policy documents, and funding applications.
But moving home from the UK to join my brother here in Chu Chua has taught me that sovereignty is entirely practical and immediate. Every time we make a decision about where data is stored, who can access it, what format it lives in, and what happens to it when a project ends, we are practicing data sovereignty. It is not a grand declaration. It is a hundred small design decisions made consistently over time.
How software makes choices for you
The design of a system always encodes assumptions about who is in charge.
A system that stores all records centrally in a vendor's cloud assumes the vendor is the ultimate long-term steward. A system that treats the community's own staff as "users" of someone else's platform, rather than governors of their own infrastructure, has already made a sovereignty decision before anyone has even signed a contract.
Good design for Indigenous data sovereignty starts from the opposite assumption: the Nation is the steward, always. The technology should be built to serve that relationship, not work around it.
This is especially critical when dealing with child and family services data. For generations, this information has been managed by external systems that do not understand our cultural context, kinship structures, or community protocols. We work with Indigenous Governing Bodies (IGBs) across BC to flip this script, building systems that put authority back where it belongs.
These threads all pull the same way
Local AI, data sovereignty, sustainable infrastructure, and mentorship are not separate workstreams. They are the same project: building the conditions for Indigenous communities to govern their own digital futures, in perpetuity, on their own terms.
The hardware enables it. The policy frameworks protect it. The design decisions embed it. And the people, the ones we invest in now, are how it continues.
My niece, who sat on my office floor watching me code, will be sixteen in five years. She might be deep into something totally different by then. But if she does choose tech, I want there to be a clear path for her here. One that doesn't require leaving the territory to find meaningful work, or leaving her values at the door to do it.
That is the work we came home to do.
Are you ready to turn data sovereignty from a policy into a daily practice? Whether you are an IGB administrator or a community leader looking to reclaim your digital infrastructure, we want to be useful to you.