Cloud services are all the rage right now. Home users and businesses are putting their e-mail, documents, pictures and personal information onto these hosted services at a breakneck pace. However, I’ve found that most of the folks using these services fail to ask themselves one simple question: Is my information safe? Now frankly I’m stepping into a bit of a minefield on this one, as the legal issues surrounding the cloud could be debated for days or even years. So what I’m going to do here is give you a couple of examples that will hopefully open up your minds to some of the issues these services currently face. To begin let’s look at the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, which is a staple of US law. This amendment guards us from unreasonable searches and seizures. Basically any search and arrest and warrants need to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probably cause. So, if you have personal files and papers in your home these would be protected under the 4th Amendment. However, what if you’ve begun to store all of these sensitive files out on the cloud? As of right now, the courts have not come to a conclusion about how to treat this data. There is a question as to whether or not users who store their data on the cloud have a reasonable expectation of privacy. I won’t go too far into the details here, but given the current state of indecision, home users should be aware of the data they post to these types of services.
Posted by Elizabethon Thursday, July 01 2010 - 19:00:31 |
