New perspectives with regard to state territory possible through the digital world

The most obvious way it makes a new perspective possible is through the digitisation of information. First, this has meant that information has become easily movable—it no longer has to be kept on paper (or clay tablets, for that matter). Second, information and its processing infrastructures have been separated—they no longer need to be physically connected. In the past, information and the tools used to process it were installed on the same physical site. This is no longer the case: information has become digital (and digital-born), meaning that it may be stored anywhere and transported to be processed anywhere. Similarly, information processing infrastructures may or may not be installed next to the information or even within a state’s analogue world territory. This breakdown of the natural, analogue-world territoriality link between a state and its information continues in full swing today: it started with data globalisation and has continued with data nationalism and the quest for (political) digital sovereignty. Political considerations notwithstanding, however, the fact remains that the link between a state and an analogue-world territory as the (obvious) location for the installation of its information processing infrastructure has been irreversibly broken.

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