The growth of cloud computing within the business sector has been significant in recent years and the attractive cost-cutting and efficiency-increasing potential of the cloud for remote storage and data backup are clear.
However, cloud expert Julie Tower-Pierce believes that legislation is only just being adapted to deal with the relatively alien world of the cloud and that it is being approached with anxiety and regarded as an unknown quantity by those in the legal profession.
The problem is not only that the legal implications for consumers, businesses and clients are not fully understood or defined by the law, but also that there are few precedents upon which to base future cases. The lack of legal precedents indicates that cloud computing is still in need of some court time in order to ensure that the legal system is better equipped to deal with it from a position of experience.
Ms Tower-Pierce believes that there needs to be transparency in the data storage industry, with the complexities of the systems that secure and retrieve data fully explained to lawyers in building their understanding as to how current legislation might be applied.
Ms Tower-Pierce also believes that cloud vendors will need to convince lawyers that businesses that migrate their systems over to cloud-based solutions are improving security rather than placing the private data that they are storing in a potentially compromising position.
It is said that the best way to outline the technologies and resultant implications of cloud computing is to remove as many of the technicalities as possible in describing them. This can only be achieved if a discourse is held between the legal teams and those IT managers who fully understand the intricacies of the cloud.
Writing for SearchSecurity, Ms Tower-Pierce says that it is not necessary for those involved in the technical aspects of cloud computing to have a thorough understanding of law. Instead a meeting of minds and the sharing of information should ensure that future legislation governing the cloud will be fair, reasoned and based upon informed opinions.
