Evolving security standards a challenge for cloud computing, expert says

Grazed from Network Computing. Author: Ellen Messmer.

Any enterprise looking to use cloud computing services will also be digging into what laws and regulations might hold in terms of security and privacy of data stored in the cloud. At the Cloud Security Alliance Congress in Orlando this week, discussion centered on two important regulatory frameworks now being put in place in Europe and the U.S.

The European Union, with its more than two dozen countries, has had a patchwork of data-privacy laws that each country created to adhere to the general directive set by the EU many years ago. But now there’s a slow but steady march toward approving a single data-privacy regulation scheme for EU members…

These proposed rules published by the EU earlier this year may not become law until 2016 or later as they involve approval by the European Parliament, said Margaret Eisenhauer, an Atlanta-based attorney with expertise in data-privacy law.

Europe, especially countries such as Germany, already takes a stricter approach to data protection than the U.S., with databases holding individual’s personal information having to be registered with government authorities, and rules on where exactly data can be transmitted. "European law is based on the protection of privacy as a fundamental human right," Eisenhauer said…

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