Cloud Computing: Privacy And Other Risks

Introduction

While the benefits of outsourcing organizational data storage to the cloud are plentiful, so are the legal risks. An organization must be sensitive to the fact that it has legal obligations to protect the personal information for which it is responsible. The implementation of accompanying policies, the performance of appropriate due diligence and the maintenance of proper documentation are each essential to minimizing the risk of liability which may result from the improper use or disclosure of outsourced personal information. By transferring data to the cloud, an organization relinquishes a degree of control and, as a result, must manage the relationship between its privacy obligations in the jurisdiction where it collects personal information, and the governing privacy laws in the jurisdictions to which the data is transferred in order to limit its exposure to liability.