New report: UK needs digital sovereignty strategy to address threats from reliance on big tech
The UK’s over-reliance on a small number of tech giants for its digital infrastructure is a matter of national security that must be urgently addressed, warns a new report by Open Rights Group.
The report, Tech Giants and Giant Slayers: The case for Digital Sovereignty and the Digital Commons outlines significant economic, security, legal, and policy risks, including to democracy and public debate in the UK.
Tech Giants and Giant Slayers Report
The Case for Digital Sovereignty and the Digital Commons.
Find out more.
About the report
The urgent need for a digital sovereignty strategy, defined as the ability of a country to have control over its digital infrastructure, data, and technology, is supported by the Green Party’s Siân Berry MP, Labour’s Clive Lewis MP and the Lib Dems’ Lord Tim Clement Jones, who have all contributed forewords to the report.
The report finds that Big Tech has used its outsized power and resources to control markets, limit innovation and lobby Government. This not only means a small number of companies have been able to capture the market for the UK’s critical infrastructure but have also been allowed to influence policies that entrench the UK’s dependency. In recent years, the tech lobby has pressed hard to halt AI regulation, limit data protection, and reduce the impact of competition law.
This over-reliance on foreign companies has become an urgent issue of national security as US foreign policy actions are creating geopolitical uncertainty. As the report notes, the US has tech powers of sanction which can be used to stop a company from supplying a government, institution or individual with services. Most recently, these powers have been used decision of the USA to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The sanctions led to Microsoft shutting down its email facilities, and closing electronic and online banking facilities to ICC members. If the UK’s relationship with the US were to deteriorate, for example over Greenland or Iran, the US could leverage power through its corporate dominance of the UK’s critical infrastructure.
Despite knowing that action must be taken, the current Government appear to be doing all they can to reinforce dependency on US tech giants, including recently by giving contracts to controversial spyware company Palantir.
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The cost of Digital Dependence
ECONOMIC
The dominance of a few tech giants leads to vendor lock-in, inflated costs for government and businesses, and the extraction of value from the UK economy through tax avoidance and profit repatriation. Currently around eight major IT providers and consultancies named as strategic suppliers to the UK are over charging, while others are causing projects to over-run budgets and ensuring long term dependence on their systems, whether good or bad. The Competition and Markets Authority has found that the UK is being overcharged by at least £500m a year in the Cloud market. The Social Market Foundation estimates government will be overcharged by at least £300m over this Parliament through restrictive software license conditions.
SECURITY
Reliance on foreign proprietary technology creates vulnerabilities to surveillance, espionage, and cyber-attacks. These risks are produced by foreign legal frameworks which govern both US and Chinese technology companies.
SURVEILLANCE
The UK is exposed to the extra-territorial jurisdiction of other countries, such as the US CLOUD Act and China’s National Intelligence Laws, which can compel tech companies to hand over data or grant access to UK systems.
POLICY
The immense lobbying power of Big Tech distorts policy-making, leading to weaker regulation, anti-competitive practices, and a centralised, abusive and anti-democratic digital information environment.
Growing the economy through digital sovereignty
The report urges the UK Government to follow the lead of EU countries, including Germany, France, Netherlands and Denmark, who are actively pursuing digital sovereignty through strategic investments in open technologies and international collaboration.
Greater investment in Open Source can also drive UK economic growth, supporting domestic innovation and a more competitive technology sector. It can also modernise critical government systems, strengthen control over public technology infrastructure, reduce dependence on proprietary vendors and restore public sector control.
Jim Killock Executive Director of Open Rights Group said:
“For years, a handful of Big Tech companies have used their power to gain control of the UK’s digital infrastructure, locking the government into wasteful contracts and shaping tech policy in their favour.
This over-reliance on foreign tech companies is now an urgent national security issue as well as an economic threat.
The UK needs to follow the EU’s lead and develop a digital sovereignty strategy that builds and deploys Open Source software and promotes international collaboration.
Public money should be spent on public code that benefits us all, rather than lining the pockets of Big Tech’s shareholders.”
Green Party MP Siân Berry said:
“Open Rights Group is doing incredibly important work to call out the glaring risks we are exposed to by our over-reliance on tech giants. As global events continue to cause instability, we must build much more resilience to protect our critical digital infrastructure from the potential threat of sanctions and service withdrawal.
Striving for digital sovereignty with the recommendations in this report as our guide, should be a top Government objective, and is a massive chance to grow the UK’s homegrown technology sector.
By investing in open source software and diversity of talent, pioneering British businesses could deliver accessible, user-friendly services designed with the people who use them in mind. It is an open-goal we must not miss.”
Labour Party MP Clive Lewis said:
“For too long, Big Tech corporations have embedded themselves in our public services, locked us into contracts that serve their shareholders not citizens, and even shaped government policy.
The result is government contracts being handed out to companies like Palantir, who should have no place in delivering UK public services.
But it has also left us dangerously vulnerable. With increasing geopolitical uncertainty as a result of US and Israeli military actions, the UK must ensure that it has control over its critical digital infrastructure. Digital sovereignty must be a priority.”
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Tim Clement Jones said:
“This paper provides both the rigorous analysis and practical roadmap we urgently need. It exposes the true costs of our current dependencies and charts a course toward responsible sovereignty—one that balances innovation with resilience, economic opportunity with democratic accountability.
The question now is whether we have the political courage to act. Every procurement decision that embeds foreign dependency, every compromise of sovereignty in the name of convenience, accumulates into strategic vulnerability.
The goal of responsible sovereign AI is within reach, but only if we pursue it with both ambition and wisdom.”
