![\"Sara](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Sara-Kristian-2026-001.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Swissinfo journalists Sara Ibrahim and Kristian Foss Brandt tried to disconnect from Big Tech in their daily lives. <\/p>\n
Vera Leysinger \/ SWI swissinfo.ch <\/p>\n
Switzerland wants digital sovereignty, but can it really distance itself from Big Tech? Two Swissinfo journalists tried cutting ties with US tech giants.\u00a0Here\u2019s\u00a0what happened.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Listen to the article <\/p>\n
Listening the article <\/p>\n
Toggle language selector <\/p>\n
English (US) <\/p>\n
English (British) <\/p>\n
Generated with artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n
This content was published on <\/p>\n
June 6, 2026 – 10:27\n<\/p>\n
At 6:30 in the morning, my iPhone alarm rings. Before 7am, I have used at least five more American technologies: WhatsApp (Meta); LinkedIn (Microsoft); Gmail (Alphabet); Teams and Outlook (Microsoft). And I still have not even washed my face.<\/p>\n
Most of my digital life \u2013 from photos of my daughter\u2019s first days to my passwords and personal documents \u2013 is stored somewhere in Big Tech\u2019s cloud infrastructure. Almost every interaction with the outside world, private or professional, passes through a handful of US companies.<\/p>\n
The more I report on Switzerland\u2019s push for \u201cdigital sovereignty\u201d \u2013 the idea that essential technologies and data should remain under local control \u2013 the more I wonder what this would look like on a personal level. Could I become independent of Big Tech? And could an entire country?<\/p>\n
My colleague Kristian\u00a0had been asking himself the same questions.\u00a0Earlier this year,\u00a0he decided to cut the cord\u00a0with Big\u00a0Tech\u00a0and\u00a0I joined him\u00a0on his journey to digital independence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We started with the basics: our computers, email, phones, cloud services and AI tools. We imagined the process would entail a few simple switches \u2013 one service out, another service in.<\/p>\n
In reality, it felt more like pulling roots out of dry soil: possible, yes, but slow and messy. We were soon living in a sort of parallel world where mobile payments stopped working, work tools broke and we found ourselves locked out of services we had used for most of our lives.<\/p>\n
>> What happens when you try to cut ties with Big Tech? Here\u2019s how our experiment and our new series \u201cCan Switzerland \u2013 and the Swiss \u2013 live without Big Tech?\u201d began:<\/p>\n
Trapped in the ecosystem<\/p>\n
The problem, we learned, is not a single app or platform. It is the\u00a0ecosystem\u00a0Big Tech companies have\u00a0built around our digital lives. Escaping it takes time, money and energy.<\/p>\n
Switzerland is home to a high number of privacy-focused technology companies offering alternatives beyond Big Tech. They include e-mail provider Proton, cloud storage provider Tresorit and chat interface Threema. So we had options.<\/p>\n
When Kristian began replacing mainstream services with alternatives, he noticed that many doors suddenly closed. Like millions of people, he had used Gmail for years without thinking much about it. It was reliable, simple and connected to almost everything. <\/p>\n
Switching providers did not mean simply changing inboxes but untangling years of accounts, logins and services built around Google\u2019s products.<\/p>\n
\u201cGmail had become less like an email account and more like a bunch of keys I carried without noticing,\u201d he says. \u201cOne for the bank, one for public transport, one for health insurance, one for almost everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Can Switzerland \u2013 and the Swiss \u2013 live without Big Tech? <\/p>\n
In this multi-part series, Swissinfo journalists Kristian Foss Brandt and Sara Ibrahim attempt to replace core technologies from major US tech companies in their daily and professional lives \u2013 including Windows, Android, Google services, cloud\u00a0platforms\u00a0and AI tools \u2013 with Swiss or European alternatives where possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The goal is to test whether digital sovereignty is realistic at the individual level and what\u00a0this reveals\u00a0about Switzerland\u2019s broader technological dependence and the possibility of reducing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Proton argues that email often becomes the gateway into a much wider technological dependency. Once users choose a provider, other services tend to follow, like document and password managing apps, photo storage, calendar, messaging.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur real competitor isn\u2019t just Gmail,\u201d Proton COO Raphael Auphan told Swissinfo. \u201cIt\u2019s Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.\u201d<\/p>\n
I encountered the same issue while trying to move away from Apple and Google.<\/p>\n
Replacing my nearly new Apple iPhone 16 meant buying a Fairphone 5, branded as a more ethical European alternative, for its durability and more responsibly sourced materials. Then came the fiddly effort of installing \/e\/OS, an open-source mobile operating system that is still based on Android (owned by Google) but stripped of most Google services.<\/p>\n
The user experience was smoother than I expected. But I soon found out what it means to move away from a smartphone ecosystem dominated by a few global vendors.<\/p>\n
Without Google and Apple services, I could no longer pay conveniently with my phone, rely on integrated password and calendar apps or even access some work applications. Two-factor authentication \u2013 used to secure access to many services \u2013 became harder to manage, and I had to fall back on SMS-based verification codes instead of more secure passkeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t switch to open source if your only motivation is saving money while changing nothing else. You\u2019ll be disappointed,\u201d Jonas Sulzer warned us. He is a computer science student at the Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and co-president of Digitale Integrit\u00e4t Schweiz, a new party against technological surveillance.<\/p>\n
He was right.<\/p>\n
Switzerland\u2019s invisible dependence<\/p>\n
Our personal experiment quickly revealed that Switzerland\u2019s dependence on foreign technology goes beyond individuals\u2019 phones. It is systemic, economic and political.<\/p>\n
American providers account for 78%External link<\/a> of cloud services used in Switzerland. Up to 80%External link<\/a> of publicly traded Swiss firms in critical sectors such as energy, healthcare and utilities depend on US technology, reflecting a broader European trend.<\/p>\n Swiss federal and cantonal authorities are spending millions<\/a> to migrate toward cloud infrastructure owned mainly by Chinese and US companies, such as Alibaba, Microsoft and Amazon. Key services including customs, healthcare and parts of public administration already run on Big Tech cloud servers, according to Swiss magazine RepublikExternal link<\/a>.<\/p>\n Efforts to reduce this dependence are accelerating. In 2024, parliament agreed to invest nearly CHF250 million for a project that includes the development of a sovereign cloud infrastructureExternal link<\/a> for the federal administration by 2032. In December 2025, it also decided that the Swiss army would allocate CHF10 million to open-source alternativesExternal link<\/a> to Microsoft Office 365.<\/p>\n \u201cThe army must help civil authorities work on an exit strategy from Microsoft,\u201d says Green party parliamentarian Gerhard Andrey, one of the key voices in Switzerland\u2019s digitalisation debate.<\/p>\n >> Why Switzerland\u2019s path to digital independence remains difficult:<\/p>\n \n More<\/p>\n More <\/p>\n Swiss AI\n <\/p>\n Switzerland\u2019s uphill climb to AI sovereignty\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n This content was published on <\/p>\n Nov 7, 2025 <\/p>\n Switzerland has invested millions to reduce its dependence on American tech giants. But for many, true sovereignty in\u00a0artificial intelligence (AI)\u00a0remains\u00a0out of reach.\u00a0 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read more: Switzerland\u2019s uphill climb to AI sovereignty\u00a0\u00a0 The federal administration has\u00a0recently started to testExternal link<\/a>\u00a0open-source solutions\u00a0such as\u00a0openDesk\u00a0and Linux\u00a0with encouraging results, despite\u00a0internal resistanceExternal link<\/a>\u00a0and doubts about their maturity and\u00a0stability<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"hiker\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/266632850_highres.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
![\"Macron](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/000_84ER6NZ.jpg\")
<\/p>\n