Foreign Technology Can and Will Endanger Sovereignty

Ivan Sascha Sheehan

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Foreign firms like Switzerland’s Sicpa quietly control vital state functions—tax enforcement, currency authentication, and digital tracking—posing serious risks to national sovereignty with little transparency or public oversight.

Big Tech’s tightening grip on American life has become impossible to ignore. From Silicon Valley’s selective censorship to TikTok’s opaque data harvesting, the public knows the dangers of surrendering digital infrastructure to unaccountable corporate actors. Yet while all eyes remain fixed on Beijing’s influence operations, quieter forces are burrowing deeper into the machinery of state sovereignty, not just in the United States, but across the globe.

One such actor is Sicpa, a Swiss firm with an oversized role in how nations authenticate their currencies, enforce taxes, and increasingly, shape the future of money itself.

What Is Sicpa?

Founded in Lausanne, Switzerland, Sicpa earned its historical reputation by producing high-security inks in banknotes, including US dollars and euros. However, over the past two decades, Sicpa has evolved into something more expansive and far more powerful. Today, it acts as a silent gatekeeper to state sovereignty, managing how governments authenticate currency, regulate excise taxes, track goods, and even think about the future of digital money.

Through its flagship platform, SICPATRACE, the company provides governments with end-to-end systems for digitally tracking and tracing excisable goods such as tobacco, alcohol, fuel, and pharmaceuticals across the supply chain. These systems are deployed in over 20 countries, allowing tax authorities to monitor in real-time what is produced, where that product travels, and who ultimately purchases it.

In principle, such a system promises to combat illicit trade and boost state revenues. In reality, it gives a private foreign corporation significant access to national data and a critical role in domestic revenue enforcement without the transparency or accountability that such power warrants.