Description: In today’s interconnected digital world, the concept of digital sovereignty and data localization has gained significant attention, particularly in Developing and Least Developed Countries, DLDCs. With an increase in the adoption of digitalization, heavy investment in digital infrastructure, and notable rapid technological advancement experienced in the DLDCs which brought about unprecedented big data generation that could be explored by either the good or bad actors, it becomes relatively essential to safeguard national interests in cyberspace, ensuring data privacy, security, and regulatory autonomy. Digital Sovereignty refers to a nation's ability to control its technology, data flows, digital infrastructure, and services without dependence on external entities. However, certain challenges are unique to DLDCs in the design, implementation, and adoption of mechanisms that form their Digital Sovereignty which must be addressed. According to a study by Finhai Munzara, CFO of Africa Data Centers, while Africa is 17% of the global population, its data centre market makes up only 1% of the global market. This shows that a huge amount of data generated on the continent is not residing in the continent. The above situation does not only ascertain the possibility of data breaches, data extortion, and unauthorised access to citizens' classified or personal data but also poses a great threat to the concerned economies' sovereignty and the possibility of survival when in conflict. In 2018 and 2023 significant data breaches occurred in South-Africa and Kenya respectively where personal information of millions of citizens was compromised. While that of Kenya was linked to Anonymous Sudan Hackers backed by Killnet, a pro-Russian hacking group, that of South-Africa was due to security vulnerabilities in a database managed by a third party. Perhaps adopting the Tanzanian perspective of digital sovereignty is crucial for DLDCs. Despite its sizable population, Tanzania has all its citizen’s local data stored in-country.
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