Insurance and Governance for Data on the Cloud

[Sean Lew]

I was just doing my banking and was thinking that banks have legislation to protect my money against fraud and theft. If there was a system error and my money was stolen, they have to put it back somehow. Why can’t this be done for data centres and cloud computing providers? The data in an organisation’s database/software could potentially be alot more valuable than the cash in their bank. If the data was missing, companies could be out of business. If the data was stolen, competitiveness, organisational secrets and privacy could be compromised. These are highly valuable but probably harder to quantify it in dollar terms.

If this is the case, why can’t the government enforce some sort of legislation on data centre providers and cloud computing suppliers? Maybe an insurance amount could be paid to ensure data integrity and security? If organisations do not pay that they do not get the benefit of the security? These are just some high level thoughts.

Cloud computing is not only great for businesses technically, its also very low cost and fantastic for the environment. These are areas that are of interests to government. If more businesses could reduce their cost and make more money, they could potentially be stimulating the economy. Green IT has also been a popular topic in the IT and since government’s are trying to reduce green house emissions, why not start with one of the largest energy consuming technology – computers?

This is an idea that came up from no where and something that could be looked at. What are your thoughts on this? Is this feasible? Does government have any incentives to tackle this? Would businesses be willing to pay more? If yes, how much? What will be the liability of data centre providers? Feel free to comment.



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