Who holds the off switch? It should be you
Picture a connection you depend on, with an off switch you cannot reach. Someone else holds it, and you only find out when it is used.
That is roughly what happened to Ukraine’s military this month. On October 14, its Starlink terminals began losing connection above about 160 kilometers per hour, and Ukrainian officials say there was no warning.
Who ordered the cap is disputed. Reuters reported, citing two US officials and one Western official, that the order came from inside the White House. Elon Musk wrote that the military version of the network is owned and controlled by the US government, with limits decided by the US military and ultimately the president. Trump denies giving the order, and so does Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Reports also differ on whether the cap is still in place.
Power over Europe
We cannot settle that question from the outside, but it sits next to facts that are not in dispute. Asked three times on NBC whether the US considers Ukraine an ally, Bessent did not answer directly. Trump also announced a pause on Russia sanctions that Congress had approved.
Europe is under pressure too. The US ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, told the Financial Times that European companies could face “devastating” retaliation in the American market if Brussels goes ahead with a satellite spectrum plan that would reserve most of one frequency band for EU-based operators. It is still a proposal, and no specifics on the retaliation have been reported.
Taken together, these point to a US government that wants a say over Europe’s choices, and over who stays connected. A country at war, dependent on one network, feels it first.
So who should decide?
A satellite network and a photo library share one weakness: both are run by companies under another country’s jurisdiction. We wrote about this in America’s digital kill switch and on the CLOUD Act.
So who should decide what happens to your data, your photos and your connection?
Not Washington. Not a company that answers to it. You.
If the Reuters reporting is accurate, a government used the connection of a country under attack as leverage. That is not a government whose decisions should reach your photos, documents or messages.
What Europe already has
Europe is not starting from zero. The GDPR’s Article 48 says a non-EU court judgment or administrative decision can only be recognized or enforced in the EU if it rests on an international agreement. The Data Act requires cloud providers to take measures against unlawful access by non-EU governments to non-personal data held in the EU, and makes switching providers easier.
That does not make Europe independent today, and enforcement stays contested, as the Google fine under the Digital Markets Act shows. But the framework starts from the idea that you decide what happens to your data, not a foreign government.
Your data, your decision
List the services you rely on every day, and ask who holds the off switch for each. For your photos, PixelUnion is a European company that stores your Library in Germany and Finland, under EU law, and you can download your photos at any time.
Want to read more about why the ground is shifting? The unavoidable breach looks at the trade war between the US, the EU and Canada, and what it means for data stored in the US.
Cover photo by Alexey Demidov on Unsplash.