corsus is committing to digital sovereignty and secure AI
To mark the upcoming DI.DAY, the Digital Independence Day on 5 April, corsus is embarking on a journey towards greater digital sovereignty with a new digital strategy. In future, we want to use services that are “society-friendly”, as the organisers of DI.DAY put it, and determine for ourselves where our data is stored and how it is processed. Our key areas of focus are AI and cloud services.
Digital sovereignty can be defined as “the ability to defend, utilise and shape personal or collective freedom and self-determination in a digitalised society” (bpb). To what extent is this freedom under threat? We have become largely dependent on the products and services of a handful of tech corporations. The power held by these corporations touches on areas central to democracy and politics: the dissemination of information and public debate, which are deliberately used to exert political influence. At the same time, according to Lobbycontrol, these corporations, with their billion-euro lobbying budgets, are among the biggest lobbyists in Europe and the US. They shape laws to their advantage, weaken regulatory bodies and shape the framework of the digital world according to their own interests (DIW).
Big Tech may seem like the only option, but there are many ‘society-friendly alternatives’ (Di.Day) that offer similar functionality yet are often little known. Some of these are being highlighted by the European Alternatives for Digital Products initiative. At corsus, we have looked into this and immediately implemented a number of changes, including European and open-source alternatives for AI chatbots and collaboration tools, and local AI for simple applications such as translations. To this end, we have developed an internal policy for the selection of online services and the input of data, which sets clear standards and ensures transparency. In doing so, we are also complying with the requirements of the EU AI Act, which mandates that companies assess the use of AI and the associated risks and make this transparent to employees and customers.
A complete move away from Microsoft 365 is currently still hindered by specialised requirements; the classic lock-in effect is at play here. However, we have also developed a roadmap in this area to increase our independence in the medium term. Thanks to our own server, we can already manage our data ourselves; outsourcing to the cloud is only used temporarily for specific requirements such as collaborative editing.
Digital Independence Day encourages people, on every first Sunday of the month, to switch to digital services that respect democracy and society, using the hashtags #DIDit or #DUTgemacht. The initiative by Save Social is supported by a broad coalition of NGOs, institutions and companies; further information can also be found at https://di.day.
