Data is as inseparable from human identity as fingerprints, blood, and DNA.
The Initiative does not write the laws of any State. It writes the principles around which the laws of States can converge — and supports the tools by which those principles can be lived in the ordinary course of life.
In plain language, in terms that survive translation across cultures and legal traditions. These are not novel claims — they are the same human rights humanity has long affirmed, extended in their full measure to the new instruments of human life.
Declarations of shared intent and ideological alignment, framed as expressions of intent rather than binding obligation. The first instrument is The International Data Sovereignty Charter of 2026.
Software, infrastructure, education, and operational practice. A right that cannot in practice be exercised is no right at all. The Initiative therefore supports the construction of the means by which rights can in fact be lived.
The Charter declares the principle that the data generated by, owned by, or describing a human being is as inseparable from that human being's identity as the composition of their blood and the sequencing of their DNA, and is owed the same level of legal protection. Twelve articles, open to signature by any State or institution.
Read the twelve articles
The International Data Sovereignty Index measures the advancement of each State along five pillars derived from the Charter. It is non-coercive by design: numerical scores per pillar and an overall composite are computed for every State, but public output identifies States by name only in the context of recognition. Edition 0 surveys all 194 States of the international community.
See the IndexThe Initiative is, in this its founding year, small. Its strength lies in the willingness of those who recognize themselves in its principles to lend their names, their work, and where they choose, their resources to its growth.
Sign the Charter as a citizen and join the public Citizens' Roll — or subscribe to the Initiative's periodical dispatches. Insist of your own State that these principles enter the law of your land.
Sign or subscribeIdentify your organization as one that recognizes that the people whose data, attention, and creative output it receives must remain sovereign over the same.
ApplySign as an expression of alignment with the principles of the Charter. Signature creates no binding obligation; it creates an invitation, to yourselves and to the international community, to act in accordance with what you have signed.
Express interestA handful of dispatches each year — signings, the annual report, methodological notes, and recognitions for notable progress. Nothing more.