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Contributed by Robert Cruz, Senior Director of information governance, Actiance

2017: The Year of Cloud and Privacy by Design

One of the key trends that will drive the cloud market in 2017 is the continued stratification of cloud services providers - particularly in the area of data privacy. This topic was elevated in 2016 due to the high profile instances of data breaches the important new regulation, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), coming closer to fruition.

GDPR establishes that any firm that holds or processes data of EU citizens - including cloud providers - must abide by a set of requirements to ensure that data privacy is adequately protected. The consequences of violation are severe - to the tune of 2 percent of annual revenue for the first instance. However, what is most significant in the regulation is contained within Article 23 - Privacy by Design. It states that anyone possessing EU citizen data should have data privacy built into on-going cloud service operations, management, and security protocols. The importance of GDPR to the cloud services market is that it elevates the importance of data privacy as a critical element to consider when selecting one cloud service over another - ensuring that those services are built to meet an increasingly complex set of data protection requirements.

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About the Author

Robert provides subject matter expertise in the areas of eDisovery, regulatory compliance, and information governance. He brings 20+ years of Silicon Valley-based experience, including previous assignments at Proofpoint, Inc., Electronic Evidence Discovery, Inc., FileNet/IBM, and BroadVision, Inc. He holds an MBA degree from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.