Keynote: Digital sovereignty is not a label – it is a capability

Digital sovereignty is one of the most frequently used – and simultaneously most hollowed-out – buzzwords of recent years. "Hosted in Europe," "GDPR compliant," "Trusted Cloud": These labels are marketed as proof, while the actual technical and organizational dependencies remain unchanged.

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In this keynote, Elmar Eperiesi-Beck, CEO of Bare.ID, presents an uncomfortable thesis: Digital sovereignty does not begin with data centers, but with identities. If you do not control your identities, you are not sovereign – regardless of how many certificates are listed on your slides.

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Because IAM is no longer just a downstream IT issue. Modern IAM systems define who can access what, under which conditions, via which platforms – and based on which external dependencies. This makes IAM the power center of the digital organization. Anyone who loses control over this – through external identity providers, proprietary access models, or deeply integrated platform dependencies – loses the ability to truly steer their organization.

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This presentation highlights the misconceptions currently dominating sovereignty strategies, explains why many IAM strategies pass off vendor lock-in as modernization, and outlines the strategic guardrails organizations must establish if they are serious about digital sovereignty.

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Digital sovereignty is not an end in itself. It is a risk management issue, a business continuity issue, and increasingly a competitive factor. And it is not a state you reach once – but a capability that must be continuously shaped.

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Keynote topics:

• From digital sovereignty to digital autonomy – a necessary shift in perspective
• IAM as the power center of the digital organization: far more than just SSO and user management
• Why certifications, location arguments, and compliance checkboxes fall short
• Vendor lock-in through proprietary APIs and identity models – and how it happens without anyone explicitly deciding it
• Digital sovereignty as a matter of risk management, business continuity, and competitiveness
• Concrete strategic guardrails for CIOs, CISOs, and enterprise architects
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