infoTECH Feature

September 05, 2012

Cloud Security Alliance Unveils Privacy Level Agreement Initiative

While IT decision makers continue to cite data privacy and protection as concerns for adoption of cloud services, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has launched the Privacy Level Agreement (PLA) Working Group in an effort to help cloud service providers and potential cloud customers objectively evaluate privacy standards.

The new PLA Working Group has also been established to support the implementation of Art. 29 WP and EU National Data Protection Regulators recommendations on cloud computing, CSA officials said.

“The goal of this Working Group is to create a structure for privacy disclosures that will provide both Cloud providers and their customers with an objective and comparable way by which to communicate their personal data handling practices,” said Daniele Catteddu, managing director EMEA for CSA. “This is especially problematic in the EU, which maintains the most stringent regulations on privacy as compared to the rest of the world. The PLA Working Group represents an important first step in establishing global standards for communicating the measures taken for protecting personal data in the cloud.”

Objectives of the PLA Initiative were presented at the European Parliament as part of the General Data Protection Regulation discussion, which was led by Catteddu, along with Paolo Balboni, scientific director of the European Privacy Association and co-chair of the PLA Working Group.

“The PLA Working Group will work to define compliance baselines for data protection legislation and establish best practices for defining a standard for communicating the level of privacy measures (i.e., data protection and data security) that it agrees to maintain while hosting third-party data,” CSA officials said in a statement.

The PLA Working Group is comprised of independent privacy and data protection subject matter experts, privacy officers and representatives from Data Protection Authorities.

In a separate announcement, the CSA also signed an agreement with the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI (News - Alert)) in an effort to advance cloud computing security and help accelerate the development of cloud adoption in Hong Kong. 

“CSA research activities in Hong Kong will be a focal point for encouraging ‘technopreneurship’ across the APAC region and should serve to support an innovation hub for cloud computing security,” said Aloysius Cheang, managing director at CSA APAC. “CSA’s presence in Hong Kong will also serve as a central gateway for CSA corporate members looking to establish a presence in Hong Kong and Greater China region.”

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.




Edited by Allison Boccamazzo
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