[LINK] Australian clouds are second

stephen at melbpc.org.au stephen at melbpc.org.au
Sat Mar 9 20:34:35 AEDT 2013


Australia ranked number two in the world for cloud computing

The twenty-four countries that the BSA evaluated for its cloud scorecard
account for around 80 per cent of the global ICT market

By Kenneth Corbin (CIO (US)) 07 March, 2013
<http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/455782/australia_ranked_number_two_world_cloud_computing/>


. BSA is releasing its second annual Global Cloud Computing Scorecard. 

This scorecard ranks 24 countries based on seven policy categories:
data privacy, security, cybercrime, intellectual property, support for
industry-led standards and international harmonisation of rules, promoting
free trade, and ICT readiness/broadband deployment.

"I would say that it is a solid mix. There has been a lot of progress that
we're very hopeful about," said Chris Hopfensperger, technology policy
counsel at the BSA. "I think the thing that we see though at the end of the
day is that there's good laws and bad laws and you end up with really
patchy progress."

The 24 countries the BSA evaluated for its cloud scorecard account for
around 80 per cent of the global information and communications technology
market.

For the second year in a row, the BSA ranked Japan as the friendliest
environment for cloud providers, citing a high rate of broadband adoption,
strong laws against cybercrimes and a solid framework to promote security
and protect users' privacy.

Australia follows in the number two spot, also unchanged from last year,
while the United States moved up a position, switching places with Germany
to rank number three on the cloud scorecard.

The authors of the report attribute that advance more to the ongoing
development of standards and infrastructure supporting cloud computing than
any substantive policy measures enacted by the US government.

Last year's ranking of cloud-friendly countries:
<http://www.cio.com/article/700597/Ranking_24_Nations_by_Cloud_Policy>

Of the constellation of policy issues that affect the spread of cloud
services worldwide, Hopfensperger says that none is of greater concern than
security and privacy. He stressed that consumers and businesses alike will
be reluctant to shift data to the cloud unless they are confident that
their information will be adequately protected from cyber attacks and not
exploited for purposes that they would consider invasive.

"Privacy and security are probably talked about more than any other [issue]
for a variety reasons. But they are really two sides of the same coin," he
says. "Both are key to engendering trust in the cloud. Obviously, cloud
computing does no good if people don't want to put their data in the cloud."

The October 2012 passage of a privacy law in Singapore helped vault that
country five spots in the BSA's Cloud rankings, moving up from number 10 to
number 5, making for the biggest single gainer in the scorecard.

The BSA praises Singapore's law for taking a "light-touch" approach that
codifies a set of principles intended to affirm individuals' right to
control their personal information, while at the same time acknowledging
that cloud providers have a legitimate need to collect, use and even
disclose that data in certain cases.

That type of flexible approach, rather than overly prescriptive
regulations, is critical to nurturing a regulatory environment that fosters
the expansion of cloud-based services, according to the BSA.

Singapore "took a big step in 2012," Hopfensperger says, "because they
adopted a privacy law that balances the important consumer protections with
the need for companies to be able to move data and continue to innovate."

In contrast, each of the European Union member countries that the BSA
evaluated in its scorecard slipped at least one place, owing in large part
to the uncertainty associated with an ongoing effort to reform the body's
privacy laws.

That debate has aired proposals that alarm the BSA and some of its member
companies, including the imposition of "new administrative burdens" and
limitations on providers' ability to review data for security purposes,
rather than the risk-based, contextual approach to data protection that the
group advocates.

The BSA also warns against protectionist policies that favor domestic cloud
providers while subjecting foreign companies to bureaucratic and
operational requirements.

Indonesia, for instance, dropped one place to 21st on the BSA's list due to
new regulations requiring cloud providers to register with a central
authority and mandating that some set up datacentres in the country staffed
by local workers.

The BSA finds similar concerns with other countries that rank poorly on its
scorecard. Indeed, the five countries at the bottom of the list - in
descending order, South Africa at number 20 trailed by Indonesia, Brazil,
Thailand and Vietnam - received the lowest scores of any nation on the
BSA's "supporting free trade" criterion.

"The real problem areas I think we would say is that some of the countries
that are at the bottom of the ranking - Indonesia, Vietnam - some of these
countries are really taking active steps to chop off a piece of the cloud
for themselves," Hopfensperger says. "These things really run counter to
what we view as an international approach to cloud policy."
--

Cheers,
Stephen



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