[gaia] Re: For discussion: Operational Practices for Digital Sovereignty and Meaningful Connectivity through Circular Management of User and Network Devices

[Leandro Navarro Moldes <[e-mail]>]

Thanks a lot for the comments during the GAIA session last week. You’ll find all here (notes, slides, video): https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/session/gaia

I appreciate Mallory’s comment on the Internet Draft regarding “digital sovereignty” and proposing to use autonomy instead (and agency over tech). I wanted to bring that discussion to this list for your contributions. I agree, and it comes from my personal bias: 
I've been involved in a local conference for internet activists, called sobtec.cat (technological sovereignty), for a decade. That's why I felt positive about my understanding of that term. However, the more I read about it, the more it confirms the use of the term in that sense and the need to avoid it, and the value of using the term autonomy (as in "autonomous systems" in internet routing). Both self-determination and sovereignty relate to the country/nation/economic-protectionism, and there are connotations of individualism in terms such as self-sustainability and self-reliance. 

Thanks, Jane and Adisorn as co-chairs, for facilitating the meeting and for Adisorn's comment to consider adopting this document in GAIA. The plan is to discuss, refine, and share a revised version before IETF 126 in Vienna next July.

I prepared a few notes (with non-human assistance) to focus on autonomy and relate/differentiate from these more politically loaded terms, which carry unintended meanings and consequences. In case you want to comment/contribute towards the next version, some possible changes/additions:

Most discussions stop at governance; we extend it to material/operational capacity and action.

Community digital autonomy:
The ability of individuals, communities, and organisations to make and implement decisions regarding the technologies, infrastructure, data, and services they rely on.

This includes capacities across multiple levels of decision-making, following commons-based governance {{Ostrom1990}}, including:
- constitutional: who participates in decision-making,
- collective-choice: how rules and governance arrangements are defined, and
- operational: how resource systems are used, maintained, repaired, and adapted,

In circular device management contexts, community digital autonomy is strengthened through practices that support repair, reuse, lifecycle transparency, and the ability of communities and organisations to manage device availability and infrastructure according to their own needs and governance arrangements.

Related to agency:

Community digital autonomy requires not only access to infrastructure, but also the ability to maintain, repair, reconfigure, and govern the devices that enable participation.

These operational practices show how to strengthen community digital autonomy by enabling communities and organisations to make and implement decisions about the technologies and infrastructure they rely on. This includes the capacity to select, deploy, maintain, repair, reconfigure, and govern devices, systems and data according to local needs and priorities. By strengthening local capacity, circular device management reduces dependence on external actors while supporting long-term sustainability and adaptability of digital infrastructure.

A possible footnote:

[*] The term “community digital autonomy” is used here to emphasise community-level agency and operational capacity. While related to terms such as “digital sovereignty” and “self-determination”, it avoids state-centric interpretations and highlights the ability of communities to both decide and act upon digital infrastructure and services.

Regarding section about Principles:

These observations are consistent with commons-based governance approaches, where communities participate in defining rules, managing shared resources, and performing operational actions required to sustain infrastructure over time {{?Ostrom1990}}.

Relation to Human Rights:

These practices support community digital autonomy and relate to concepts of community self-determination in digital environments, understood as the ability of communities to define and pursue their own technological trajectories. By enabling communities not only to provide connectivity, but also to shape, maintain, and adapt the infrastructures on which they depend, these practices reinforce social, cultural, and economic participation, as well as the ability of individuals and communities to exercise agency in their digital lives, consistent with human rights-oriented considerations in Internet architecture and protocols.

Transparency and lifecycle traceability also support individuals’ and organisations’ ability to understand and verify how devices and associated data are handled, reinforcing access to information, accountability, and elements of informational self-determination. Access to information and transparency relate to the “right to know” in governance and accountability contexts.

This document is conceptually aligned with prior IRTF work on human rights considerations, including {{?RFC8280}} and {{?RFC9620}}, which analyse how protocol design and architectural choices can affect the exercise of human rights. While those documents focus on protocol development, this document addresses complementary operational conditions—such as device availability, repairability, lifecycle management, and governance—that influence whether such rights can be realised in practice.

Best, Leandro.

> On 14 Mar 2026, at 18:02, Leandro Navarro Moldes <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Dear GAIA, 
> 
> The file, with the same content, has just been posted to Datatracker:
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-gaia-circular-device-practices
> 
> See you soon, Leandro.
> 
>> On 11 Mar 2026, at 20:26, Leandro Navarro Moldes <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear GAIA colleagues, 
>> 
>> Attached a revised version of draft-gaia-circular-device-practices-01. The IETF submission system in datatracker will reopen on Saturday. I’ll submit it there when available. In the meantime, here it is in either HTML format or plain TXT format. Your choice, but I’d recommend the HTML that looks better on your web browser. 
>> 
>> We have tried to address all your comments and have done extra polishing. 
>> 
>> See you in the GAIA session next week. Looking forward to any comments you may have.
>> 
>> Best regards, 
>> Leandro.
>> 
>> <draft-gaia-circular-device-practices-01.html>
>> <draft-gaia-circular-device-practices-01.txt>

--
Leandro Navarro
http://people.ac.upc.edu/leandro	 http://dsg.ac.upc.edu