Switzerland’s neutrality has long been a cornerstone of its identity. Recognized in 1815, it was designed for a world of armies and borders. But today, power flows through cables, clouds, and code. At a roundtable hosted by L’Institut National Genevois in partnership with the Geneva Center for Neutrality on February 16 at "Les Salons", three leading voices from Switzerland’s digital ecosystem confronted a pressing question: What does neutrality mean in the age of cyber power—and can Switzerland preserve its independence in a digital world dominated by foreign platforms?
Moderated by Raimondo Pictet, entrepreneur and Head of Digital Initiatives at the Geneva Center for Neutrality, the discussion brought together Boris Siegenthaler, Co-founder and Strategic Director of Infomaniak; Marc Loebekken, Head of Legal at Proton; and Patrick Ghion, Head of Cyber Strategy at the Geneva Police.
Note: This discussion was conducted in French. The full video version of the conference is here: Table ronde : Suisse et Neutralité numérique, peut-on garder notre indépendance ? Quotes have been translated and lightly edited for clarity.
Neutrality enters the cyber era
Raimondo Pictet opened the evening with a historical reminder. The Hague Conventions of 1907 codified the central duty of neutral states: not procuring a military advantage to any warring party. This framework was designed for a world of physical borders and marching armies. Today, cyberspace is recognized across military doctrines as the fifth operational domain, alongside land, sea, air and space. If cyberspace is now a theater of conflict, what does it mean for a state to remain neutral within it?
Cloud services, data access, AI systems, and digital platforms now shape economic resilience and national security. The central tension of the evening quickly emerged: How can a neutral state remain independent when its critical systems depend on foreign technologies, foreign legal regimes, and foreign commercial incentives?
The discussion moved quickly past the simplistic idea that sovereignty equals local servers. Digital neutrality, the panel suggested, requires at least four elements: avoiding structural dependence on any single geopolitical bloc; ensuring essential services continue operating under pressure, preserving Swiss legal control over data access, protecting citizens from disproportionate surveillance and profiling.
The question is not just where data sits—but who controls the stack, the keys, and the rules of access. While the panelists agreed on the stakes, they approached sovereignty from different angles.
For Boris Siegenthaler of Infomaniak, sovereignty begins with competence. “Hosting data in Switzerland is not enough,” - he said. “Sovereignty is about know-how.” A truly “Swiss cloud,” he argued, must include Swiss and European engineering capacity. Otherwise, Switzerland merely hosts foreign dependency. Every franc spent on foreign software, he warned, exports both capital and expertise. Over time, that weakens the domestic ecosystem and accelerates talent drain. Public procurement, in his view, plays a decisive role. If the state treats software purely as a cost, structural dependency follows. If sovereignty becomes a procurement criterion, domestic innovation gains space to grow.
Marc Loebekken of Proton approached the issue from the perspective of civil liberties. For him, digital sovereignty is about whether individuals can use essential digital tools without surrendering their data to opaque platforms or mass-surveillance architectures. “Switzerland was attractive because of trust,” he explained—trust in legal processes and proportionality. That trust, he cautioned, must not be undermined.
The Swiss “trust contract” under strain
The proposed revision of Switzerland’s surveillance ordinance sparked one of the evening’s most sensitive discussions. Loebekken drew a sharp line between targeted, judge-authorized investigations and generalized data retention. “Keeping a baseline of data on everyone ‘just in case’,” he argued, risks violating proportionality and undermining Switzerland’s credibility as a privacy-friendly jurisdiction. For companies built around confidentiality, such measures could damage reputation and possibly push innovation abroad.
Patrick Ghion, speaking from the law enforcement perspective, emphasized balance. Criminal actors adopt whatever technologies maximize profit and minimize detection. Encryption, he noted, is not inherently problematic: it protects businesses, professionals, and citizens alike. Investigations in Switzerland operate under judicial authorization and legal oversight, he said. Effectiveness matters, but so does legitimacy. Security institutions, Ghion stressed, must maintain public trust. That trust depends on clear limits and proportional measures.
Open source: not a magic security badge, but a governance tool
On open source technologies, there was notable agreement. Open source does not automatically mean secure. What it guarantees is transparency. “It’s like listing ingredients,” Loebekken said. “Visibility doesn’t guarantee quality, but it allows scrutiny.”
Siegenthaler added a practitioner’s nuance. Large, widely used open-source ecosystems can be extremely robust because many actors continuously audit and improve them. Smaller projects, however, may be fragile. Sovereignty, in this context, depends less on slogans and more on investment in people who can audit, maintain, and secure critical technologies.
The international pressure point: e-Evidence and “conflicting laws”
The conversation also turned outward. Loebekken raised concerns about the European Union’s e-Evidence framework, which allows authorities in one EU member state to issue binding requests directly to providers in another. If such mechanisms are extended toward Swiss companies serving EU users, legal conflicts could arise. Swiss law may restrict direct compliance outside established mutual assistance channels. For a neutral country, this presents a dilemma: preserve domestic legal integrity, or adapt to external systems to avoid economic friction.
Ghion acknowledged that cross-border cooperation already depends on international mechanisms such as Interpol and that cooperation varies by jurisdiction. Even well-designed sovereignty frameworks, he suggested, must contend with geopolitical realities.
AI: risk and opportunity
Artificial intelligence surfaced as both a threat and an opportunity. From a policing perspective, Ghion warned that AI accelerates phishing, fraud, and synthetic media production. Digital evidence can now be manipulated with unprecedented realism. Police forces, he said, must develop tools to detect falsified media while ensuring sensitive data remains protected.
For Siegenthaler, AI also offers industrial leverage. Smaller firms can multiply productivity without multiplying headcount by deploying AI systems on infrastructure under domestic control.
For Loebekken, the long-term risk is structural concentration. If AI becomes the main interface for information and decision-making, neutrality must include alternatives that do not depend exclusively on opaque global monopolies.
In closing, the panel converged on a practical message: neutrality is not only a government project. Ghion emphasized prevention and digital literacy. Many security breaches arise from social engineering rather than technical sophistication.
Siegenthaler encouraged citizens to “consume local” digital services when feasible, strengthening the domestic ecosystem.
Loebekken highlighted public consultations as a democratic tool. Even highly technical regulatory processes allow individual input. Neutrality, they suggested, begins with awareness.
A new framework for digital neutrality
By the end of the evening, the two pillars of digital neutrality were clear: the establishment of a sovereign digital infrastructure, ensuring Switzerland can operate essential digital functions without structural dependence on foreign technological or legal systems, and the preservation of strong privacy guarantees, maintaining proportionate law enforcement under Swiss due process while protecting fundamental rights from mass surveillance.
Achieving this will not be cost-free. It will require investment, procurement reform, regulatory clarity, and technical capacity. But it may also represent an opportunity.
In a digital world shaped by geopolitical competition, Switzerland could strengthen its position as a trusted platform for the international community by extending its neutrality into the digital domain.
The question is no longer whether digital neutrality matters. The question is whether Switzerland is willing and ready to build it.
