Should India follow Europe’s digital sovereignty push?

As France and several other European countries move decisively to cut dependence on US technology firms, policy experts say India faces a similar strategic choice amid growing concerns over data security, geopolitical pressure and foreign control over critical digital infrastructure.

France last week announced that 2.5 million civil servants would stop using US-based video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Webex by 2027, shifting instead to a homegrown system. Austria’s military has replaced Microsoft Office with open-source LibreOffice, while a German state has migrated thousands of government email accounts and file-sharing systems away from Microsoft products.

The moves are part of a broader European push for “digital sovereignty” — the idea that governments should retain control over their data, software and communications systems rather than rely on foreign technology providers that could be subject to political or legal pressure from their home governments.

The issue gained urgency after the United States sanctioned the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last year, leading to the cancellation of his Microsoft email account. Though Microsoft said services to the ICC as an institution were not suspended, the episode heightened fears in Europe of a potential “kill switch”, whereby access to critical digital services could be curtailed during geopolitical disputes.

For India, analysts say the parallels are clear. Large parts of the government’s routine functioning including official communication, document processing and virtual meetings continue to rely on software and cloud services provided by foreign companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon. Even when data is stored locally, decision-making control ultimately lies outside India’s jurisdiction.

“India has long spoken about strategic autonomy in defence and foreign policy. Digital infrastructure is now a core part of that autonomy,” a senior policy analyst said. “The question is no longer about cost efficiency, but about resilience and control during crises.”

India has made progress in building sovereign digital platforms, including Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, ONDC and the government cloud initiative MeghRaj. However, experts point out that these efforts coexist with heavy dependence on foreign software for everyday administrative work, and that there is no unified national directive mandating a shift toward domestic or open-source alternatives.

European governments, by contrast, are increasingly issuing political instructions to reduce reliance on non-domestic technology, citing national security, privacy and long-term economic competitiveness.

The debate comes amid heightened global scrutiny of Big Tech dominance and concerns that geopolitical rivalries could spill into digital infrastructure. As Europe accelerates its push for technological self-reliance, India may soon face pressure to decide whether its own digital public systems can afford continued dependence on foreign platforms for core state functions.