I am not paranoid. I promise. As a matter of fact when I think about all the data security articles I follow, and all the data security I put into place for clients at my company, Passkey Computer Services, I always think to myself…”What are the odds?”, “is this overkill?”
That said, check out this article.
EU cloud data can be secretly accessed by US authorities
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/04/eu_customer_cloud_data_may_be_handed_over_by_microsoft/
So the US authorities are able to pull data as the feel is needed in defense against terrorism? How easy would it be to blur those lines? Doesn’t this scare companies regarding lawsuits in the future? Will this become a slippery slope? When in a legal battle in the future, will the opposing consul be able to subpoena data from Google Apps? Office 365? Not that I endorse messing with the truth, but will defendants no longer be able to destroy things that could be held against them? Could a court ask for a snapshot in time several months ago? Would this actually put a company that’s hosted online at a major disadvantage legally to one that’s in-house and in full control of their data? Something to consider. Can/will cloud companies ever guarantee they’ll destroy your data after you cancel?
Something to consider as well all begin to migrate more and more data to off-site solutions.
Written by Bret Erickson of Passkey Computer Services www.passkeyinc.com
Tech for Thought 