The New European Cloud Partnership And UK ICO Guidance On Personal Data And Cloud Computing

EC Cloud Partnership

The European Commission recently announced a €10 million campaign aimed at establishing standards and voluntary certification programs to make cloud computing services better aligned with European data protection laws. The EC intends to leverage the purchasing power of national and local governments throughout Europe to persuade cloud providers to adapt their services to meet European levels of data security and portability, as well as improving transparency to end users concerning how and where their data are processed. Although the EC stresses that compliance will be voluntary, it's clear that there will be significant commercial pressure on cloud providers to meet the EC standards, which are to be defined by the end of 2013.