[LINK] Education ICT Clouds

[Roger Clarke]

At 4:37 +0000 22/3/11, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
Unis prepare for next Cloud wave
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/379960/unis_prepare_next_cloud_wave
...
>Following a wave of migration to Cloud-based email systems for students
>and staff, Australian universities are preparing for the next migration
>trend, outsourcing instances of the popular Blackboard student resources
>portal to the vendorís own servers.

Do the providers of cloud services to universities gain access to the 
data in the documents, and to the messages that flow to and from 
staff-members and students?

e.g. does the student who discusses health or emotional or family 
problems with a staff-member provide their data to Google or MS?

Do the social networking arms of the conglomerate service-providers 
get to add the data arising from these documents and communications 
into the pool of data from which 'friends' are inferred?

The following study showed that many outsourced service providers 
grant themselves very substantial, and in some cases essentially 
unfettered, access to the personal data that they carry and store:
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/IU-SPE-1012.html

So ed institutions may be responsible for a massive gift of personal 
data to international corporations.

If so, they are in breach of at least the reasonable expectations of 
staff, students, and everyone that wants to communicate with them, 
but quite probably also in breach of the law.

The APF raised this with Universities Australia:
http://www.privacy.org.au/Papers/UnisAust-100414.pdf

UA did everything they possibly could to avoid consultation:
http://www.privacy.org.au/Papers/UnisAust-Reply-101027.pdf

I'd be delighted if someone can point me to the Terms under which any 
of these outsourcing deals work.

Google has about 100 documents that constitute Terms for various 
services and categories of customer, and there's a good chance that 
each individual University uses a customised set in any case.  (At 
least, that's how people used to do business in olden times).

If the situation is as dire as I fear it is, I'll be pleased to enter 
the witness box and provide evidence in support of the culpability of 
the institutions, and of the named individuals who derogated their 
duty.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University