DATAROUTES · Mapping Internet Routes for Geopolitics

The Internet has been able to grow and develop very quickly in most countries because of its highly decentralized nature. Its resilience is based on a multiplicity of different paths that allow data to always bypass a blockage or a partial destruction of the network through alternative routes. This model is today called into question by a combination of dynamics. First, we observe a dynamic of fragmentation along national borders, at the initiative of some states who, in the name of national security, seek to restore control over the borders of what they see as their national cyberspace. Second, at a higher level of abstraction, we observe another dynamic, this time guided by market forces: the concentration of data traffic around a few major players in data routing and a few large platforms. Largely invisible, this concentration also leads to a form of fragmentation along commercial lines. These evolutions raise important issues in terms of cyber stability, resilience, free flow of data and human rights, that are largely overlooked short of scientific knowledge about the geopolitics of Internet data routes. DATAROUTES aims to carry out a cartography of Internet data routes in order to understand how the routing strategies of state and non-state actors shape cyberspace and to analyze, as a domain of application, the important security and policy issues it raises for the European Union. The goals of this project are to measure and map Internet routes using open source data, thanks to DATAROUTES’ Border Gateway Protocol observatory; investigate through field work the strategic goals of state and non-state actors uncovered by the cartography; and analyze the broader policy issues they raise for the European Union in the context of the implementation of the 2020 Cybersecurity Strategy for a Digital Decade. DATROUTES will provide a platform for open access to its data and methodologies in order to encourage a new stream of research on the geopolitics of data routing.