The UK, Japan and Korea Lead the World in Cloud Computing Security

The United Kingdom, Japan and Korea lead the world with privacy and security policies best suited to foster the growth of cloud computing, according to the not-for-profit trade association BSA, whose 2013 Global Cloud Computing Scorecard findings will be released later this week.

The survey examined the policy environments of 24 countries that posses a stronghold - a combined 80 percent - of the global information and communications technology market. BSA looked at each country's laws and regulations concerning cloud computing, including data portability and cybercrime, and applied those factors into their results.

Trust and security are important issues for cloud computing, but as BSA president and CEO Robert Holleyman noted, mismatched privacy and security rules are making it hard for data to flow across borders. International service providers are being locked out of local markets and countries are “going dark,” unplugging themselves from the rest of the world. By doing so, they are undercutting economies of scale that could benefit everyone.

Without the right assurances, consumers lose confidence in online services, and a heavy hand can hurt business growth.

“One of the best examples of striking the right balance is Singapore,” said Holleyman. “It has jumped way up in the scorecard rankings by adopting a law that gives consumers confidence their data is protected while allowing businesses flexibility to innovate.”

The European Commission's Cybersecurity Strategy division announced last month that its plans to ensure a high common level of cybersecurity across the EU. Although commending their effort, BSA was quick to point out what it believes are a number of troubling elements in the proposed legislation. The company believes the directive would benefit from clearer specification of the threshold of notification requirements and should be narrowed to apply only to providers of truly critical services.

BSA first unveiled the Global Cloud Computing report in 2012. This year’s update will be the first to track how the policy environment for the international cloud computing market is changing over time.