Government Oversight For the European Cloud

In her blog, Vice President of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes, discusses the significance of public regulatory bodies for European Cloud computing.  While Kroes believes that "the Cloud is critical to Europe's growth, and essential for making the best internet available to all," she also believes that the direction of Cloud growth should be determined by a European Cloud Computing Strategy.

She lists three areas that need work:

First, the legal framework. This clearly has an international dimension and it concerns for example data protection and privacy, clear rules for the allocation of jurisdiction, responsibility and liability, and consumer protection. Everyone needs clear rights here.

Second, technical and commercial fundamentals. More research and the EU playing a stronger role in the technical standardization of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and data formats to enhance interoperability and competition between cloud providers and so on. International standardization efforts will also have a huge impact on cloud computing; The EU can play a big role here – building on, for example, the SIENA initiative.

Third, the market. Scaling up pilot projects and pushing the public sector to really make use of the potential of cloud computing as Vivek Kundra is doing in the US. (I am in close contact with him specifically on standardization aspects and experts from both sides of the Atlantic are actively cooperating already.)

References

Reference: 

The clear role of public authorities in cloud computing The clear role of public authorities in cloud computing3.8522 VN:F [1.7.5_995]