الثلاثاء، 20 نوفمبر 2012

I.H.T. Special Report: Technology & Innovation: European Governments Staying Out of the Cloud

BERLIN — Providers of cloud services in Europe are having problems selling to some of their biggest potential customers: national governments.

Concerns that data collected by government agencies could ultimately be sold to third parties has prompted some entities to postpone efforts to move their databases to the cloud, making Europe a far less promising market for such services than the United States.

In October, the House of Lords in Britain delayed a plan to let government agencies combine their databases to improve voter registration rolls. Some had already moved data to the cloud, and mixing information with the cloud-based databases was considered too risky.

“In the end, the House of Lords basically decided to take a go-slow approach,” said Lord Reid, a member of the chamber.

The fears may be well-founded. According to SafeGov, a Washington-based group that advises governments on cloud services, the privacy policies of companies like Microsoft and Google do not precisely lay out how they would protect government data from being sifted for information on individuals, which is particularly valuable to advertisers and other marketers.

SafeGov is urging both companies to pledge publicly not to mine government data and to include clauses binding them to that promise in their contracts. Microsoft and Google, in statements, insist they have done so, but questions persist.

“We have spent a lot of time looking at the privacy policies of the cloud providers in the public sector,” said Jeff Gould, an expert for SafeGov and the chief executive and research director of Peerstone Group, an information technology consultancy. “Our conclusion is that some of them have policies that whether by design or accident, allow them to conduct data mining of user information for purposes not related to the public-sector mission.”

That uncertainly has some European governments seeking extra assurance before moving their data onto the cloud.

In September, the Norwegian data protection regulator, Datatilsynet, allowed two cities, Narvik and Moss, to use Google Apps and Microsoft’s Office 365, but only if the companies stipulated they would refrain from mining data. The towns must also arrange independent audits to ensure that the information is handled properly.

In the United States, a range of American companies, including Lockheed Martin, I.B.M., Oracle, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Google, Amazon.com and Microsoft, are now serving government agencies.

The U.S. government will spend $ 4.7 billion on cloud computing services and associated infrastructure in 2013, according to Market Research Media, which is based in San Francisco. By 2018, annual spending on cloud services will grow to $ 10 billion, or about 11 percent of U.S. government spending on information technology, the firm estimates.

Breaking into the government market is “a dream” of any information technology firm, said Daniel Miller, an analyst with Market Research Media. “Microsoft and Amazon are there with just a tip of one leg. Google is only making inroads. Why would these companies compromise years of hard work for some mythical and doubtful mining benefits?”

Concerns in Europe over the sanctity of public data in the cloud surfaced in October after the data protection regulator in France, CNIL, criticized what it said were inadequacies in Google’s privacy policy. The agency criticized Google’s practice of tying together data on individuals from across its services, which the regulator said could be mined for commercial purposes. Google has said its policy conforms to European law.

But the regulator’s warning will put skittish European governments even more on edge, said Lord Reid, who served as Britain’s home, defense and Northern Ireland secretaries under Prime Minister Tony Blair. Lord Reid is also a principal for the Chertoff Group, a Washington-based consulting firm set up by the former U.S. secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff.

“I think there has been a recognition that the cloud offers great efficiencies,” Lord Reid said. “There has also been an awareness of the vulnerabilities and potential misuses.”

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I.H.T. Special Report: Technology & Innovation: European Governments Staying Out of the Cloud

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