Data sovereignty
The idea that data is subject to the laws of the country where it is collected or stored, and the controls that keep it under them.
The term is used loosely. Governments use it for control over data about their residents; vendors use it for offerings that keep data, encryption keys and administrative access within a jurisdiction. It overlaps with data residency, which is about where data sits, but goes further, to who can be compelled to hand it over.
In a vendor review, sovereignty questions come down to where the subprocessors are, which corporate group they belong to, and which laws can reach them.
Related terms
ClauseTrail watches vendors' subprocessor lists, DPAs, privacy policies, terms and AI terms, and tells your team what changed and by when to object.