Activist Kit
You don't need to be a technology expert to act. This kit gathers practical tools to hold your administration to account and spread awareness of digital sovereignty.
When a citizen asks their municipality where their emails end up, the administration is forced to ask itself the question. Civic pressure, multiplied, becomes institutional awareness and then action.
What you can do, concretely
1. Check your public body
Search for your municipality, your local health authority or your school in the Observatory's data and find out which provider handles their email and under which jurisdiction.
2. Ask the right question
Write to your municipality (certified email, town council, civic access request) and ask which email provider it uses, where the data is stored and whether a jurisdictional risk assessment has been carried out.
3. Spread the data
Share the results on social media and with the local press. A story about "where our municipality's emails end up" has a strong local impact.
4. Bring the issue to the council
Propose to a town councillor you trust a motion or a formal question on the public body's digital sovereignty, using the data as a basis.
Civic access request template
You can use civic access (FOIA, Legislative Decree 33/2013) to obtain information from the public body. Here is a sample text to adapt:
Subject: Generalised civic access request (art. 5, para. 2, Legislative Decree 33/2013) The undersigned [name] requests to know: 1. which provider handles the public body's email service; 2. in which country the email data is stored; 3. whether the provider is subject to non-EU legislation that would allow access by foreign authorities (e.g. the CLOUD Act); 4. whether a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) has been carried out in relation to that service. Yours faithfully, [name, date]
This template is provided for informational purposes and must be adapted to the specific case. It does not constitute legal advice.
Key messages (for social media and conversations)
- "When you write to your municipality, your data may end up on servers subject to foreign laws."
- "Digital sovereignty is not a technicality: it's about who controls citizens' data."
- "It's not against any provider: it's in favour of public control over public data."
- "Compliant European alternatives exist. What's needed is the will to use them."
Take the kit with you: a 2-page summary with the practical steps and the request template.
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