Microsoft calls for APEC cloud harmony

Beverley Head
Thursday, 21 October 2010 15:09

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Next month's APEC meeting in Yokohama should be viewed as an opportunity for Australia to explore how it can work towards harmonising privacy and cross data flow regulations with other nations in the region in order to deliver more certainty for enterprises considering the move to cloud computing according to Microsoft Australia lawyer Jeff Bullwinkel.

Mr Bullwinkel, the company's associate general counsel and director of legal and corporate affairs, has called for increased regional regulatory and legal harmonisation across the region. He said that while Australian enterprises were proving enthusiastic adopters of the cloud, there were some issues regarding data sovereignty and cross border data flow which needed to be addressed both at a government to government, and government to enterprise level in order to wrangle some of the lingering concerns organisations had about cloud computing.

He acknowledged that there were at present; 'Some unanswered questions regarding conflicting privacy standards and cross border flows,' and that a patchwork of rules existed in different jurisdictions.

'We would like to see more harmonisation,' he told iTWire. Mr Bullwinkel said that the Australian Government 'was awake to the issues,' and that the issue would be on the agenda at next month's APEC meetings scheduled to be held in Yokohama, Japan on 13-14 November.

'Is it possible for a common market for data in APEC?' he mused. While there was no supra-national body akin to the European Commission for APEC nations, the issue was on the agenda. He said that Microsoft's chief software strategist Craig Mundie would attend APEC and be a 'principal voice' in the call for more regional harmonisation on rules governing data flow and privacy.

'There is the opportunity for Australia to play a strong role in the APEC dialogue,' according to Mr Bullwinkel.

Microsoft itself has taken a regional approach to cloud hosting with data centres in the US, Europe and Singapore (which serves Australian and regional clients).