B&L Associates

Cloud storage taking too many liberties with personal data

May 17, 2012

A company expects that the data it owns will remain its intellectual property as long as it remains a viable entity. This is important for daily business continuity as well as in the event that eDiscovery should become necessary, but putting data into the cloud is raising concerns about adequate protection and adherence to property rights.

The newest cloud storage competitor is Google, and their Google Drive has ruffled some feathers, especially over its privacy policy that gives itself license to "use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works, communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content" that is put on the Drive. This means anything a business stores there could be used by Google for personal gain; Facebook did the same thing with users' pictures in 2009 as part of one of its ad campaigns, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Another problem facing businesses storing all their data in the cloud instead of using backup tape storage is the way that this information is stored and maintained. Basically, every company utilizing the technology has a node of data floating in the cloud, and this could ostensibly be coming in contact with other users' data or leaving ghost information anywhere in the system. This was proven in a study last year by Context Information Services wherein the group found cloud providers were not taking precautions to isolate nodes of data due to shared networks and, subsequently, other companies' data like passwords and database information was viewable to other organizations.

Exerting ownership and security over data is integral to business continuity, but when information is put in a position where it could easily be inadvertently or directly stolen, data security ceases to exist.