Project on Cloud Computing: gaps in confidentiality require better protection [11.04.2014]

A project conducted on behalf of the European Parliament on "Cloud Computing and Social Network Sites" analyzed the market situation, identified the main impacts and risks and proposed policy options.

Cloud Computing is one of the most controversially discussed IT developments in recent years which is associated with high expectations concerning low costs and job creation, while requiring high network availability and coming with a substantial risk of loss of confidentiality. In this project, conducted on behalf of the European Parliament, it was intended to regard public computing services which are new and have characteristics such as on-demand availability, resource sharing, and – supposedly – lower costs than local computing. Also, social network services were addressed, which are kind of "cloud"-based as well. The study was conducted between 2012 and 2013 on behalf of the Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) by the Danish Board of Technology, Fraunhofer ISI, the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce of Dublin City University, and ITAS.

The project report showed that (1) security is as important as difficult to achieve, that (2) more consumer protection is needed and that (3) the market for cloud computing is not as large as many have predicted and hence the effect on jobs relatively small. Measures for supporting Cloud Computing would have to ensure the confidentiality of data of European citizens, e.g. by developing open and secure soft- and hardware to address eavesdropping and attacks as well as by implementing the European draft data regulation. Other measures for strengthening the European market would be to encourage related entrepreneurial activities and to abolish mobile data roaming fees.

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