Track 2: Securing Digital Governance: Privacy, Cybersecurity, and Sovereignty for the Future

Privacy, cybersecurity, and digital sovereignty are increasingly important topics in digital governance. With more affordable technologies for handling significant volumes of data being available, government organisations worldwide are striving for more data-driven operations. Data from various types of digital infrastructure (such as IoTs), as well as data on citizens and their behaviours, is sometimes described as the “new oil” in society. With this kind of data, new and improved public services can potentially be created. However, increased use and manipulation of various data types also bring critical challenges, including ethics-related questions regarding citizens’ right to privacy, national and regional control over critical data infrastructure, systems resilience, and information security, as well as governance mechanisms for operational resilience, crisis response, and continuity of digital public services.

This Track invites empirical studies, conceptual papers, and case-based evidence that address privacy, sovereignty, security, and digital governance. Contributions may examine the ethical use and safeguarding of data, as well as technical and operational approaches to protecting privacy and ensuring cyber resilience. We encourage submissions that explore cybersecurity issues, such as protecting critical infrastructure, mitigating data breach risks, and addressing vulnerabilities in IoT systems. Additionally, papers investigating how privacy, cybersecurity, and/or digital sovereignty considerations can be embedded into operational digital governance frameworks and translated into real-world regulatory and institutional practices are particularly welcome.