Data Sovereignty

The principle that data about a community — its people, territories, practices, or bodies — should be subject to the laws, governance, and collective authority of that community rather than of the outside entities that happen to collect or host it. The concept originated in Indigenous self-determination movements and has since been extended to other groups, including disabled communities, whose health, assistive-technology, and behavioural data are routinely gathered, stored, and monetised by researchers, vendors, and platforms. Data sovereignty raises concrete design and policy questions for accessibility work: who owns AT telemetry, whose consent is required for training datasets built from disabled users' data, and who has authority to audit and revise algorithmic systems that render disabled bodies.