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Patriot Act Dampening Cloud Computing?

Posted by kdawson on from the hey-you-get-offa-my-cloud dept.

Julie188 writes "Governments are turning the Internet into a cyberspace reflection of real-world geographic conflicts. One report says that the Canadian government is forbidding its IT organizations to use services that store or host the government's data outside their sovereign territory. They especially cannot use services where the data is stored in the United States because of fears over the Patriot Act. What kinds of jurisdiction issues might people face — think Google cooperating with the Chinese government — as cloud computing becomes the norm and your data is stored in 'offshore parts' of the cloud?"

14 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. I said it before, I say it again by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Patriot Act hurts the US IT industry.

    Why should a foreign investor risk it to bring his IP to the US with the threat hanging over his head that suddenly it's declared illegal to export it, should he discover something the US deems "useful for terrorism" (read: something we'd rather have in the hands of US companies than others)?

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    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:I said it before, I say it again by c_g_hills · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Out of interest, why would a sovereign nation even consider hosting data outside its own borders? For large countries such as Canada and the U.S.A. I cannot think of a reason. The U.K. however has a government completely incapable of looking after the security of its data so I can understand they might prefer to put it in the hands of a country that is more capable of ensuring security.

    2. Re:I said it before, I say it again by TDyl · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This El Reg Story talks about our dear Labour party possibly out-sourcing our entire 2011 census data to Lockheed Martin. I find it extremely worrying that such personal and private data (this time they're going to be asking us about sex habits - with criminal penalties for not answering) could even be considered as being able to be off-shored. Our current government are a laughing-stock and, unfortunately, very dangerous to personal privacy as well. They seem not to be able to learn from mistakes and continue plunging down a path of idiocy and stupidity that make Eden and Macmillan (previous prime ministers with none-too-savoury records) look almost angelic in comparison.

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      Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
  2. Governments and outsourcing? by compumike · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Shouldn't governments be particularly sensitive about not having a role in picking economic winners and losers?

    Beyond that, their stance seems relatively well founded. Take a look at the new privacy policies for Google Health... saying that they might release your records in some situations when required to do so by law.

    But, I think the summary doesn't make it sufficiently clear that this is just government IT departments, not all information technology in Canada. Private citizens and businesses can still do as they wish.

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    Electronics kits for the digital generation.

    1. Re:Governments and outsourcing? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, a government should actually do quite the opposite of what's happening: Making sure that everyone has the same chance to succeed, offering a level play field for enterprises, make them compete with each other, let the best one win chosen by the customer who picks the supplyer making the best offer.

      IIRC from my economy courses, that's what free market is about.

      Instead we get more and more laws lobbied into existance by large companies to ensure those companies have an edge over anyone trying to muscle into the field. Worse yet, outdated and obsolete structures and business models are being propped up by laws that go directly against anything free market represents.

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      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Governments and outsourcing? by garett_spencley · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Not everyone agrees that a free market is what's best for society. There are always going to be political lobbyists, politicians and voting citizens who opt for more regulation. In fact, I'm personally surprised by how many of my peers seem to favour more communist-like systems.

      The other day a friend of mine was watching a Youtube video of a speech given by one of the founding members of the Canadian Action Party and he, not being canadian, asked me who this guy was. I explained to him what the CAP was all about. Said that while I agree with their Canadian Nationalist views they feel that globalization is a big conspiracy by the corporations in order to rule the world and make everyone their slaves. His response was "well isn't that already true ?"

      It seems that a large portion of the public feels that corporations have far too much power and that free market has failed. They want government to further regulate the markets because they would rather have the government control their lives than corporations (they refuse to see that the public gives the corporations their power just as we give the government it's power).

      Since I've failed to remain neutral I might as well just add that I am a pro-free-market libertarian and I think it will take a couple of wars before we can claim that the corporations enslave people. I do agree, however, that they get away with too much, but not because of a lack of regulation. It's because money buys justice and politicians. THAT is what that needs to be fixed. Yet many people don't look that deep into it. I can say with assertion that most people that I know in person certainly don't. They see that money = corporations = free market = evil and thus want more regulation.

      Oh and it doesn't help matters when every single case of deregulation has resulted in short term economic upheaval while things balance out. Forget about selling long term advantages if it's going to cost people jobs and higher prices in the short term.

    3. Re:Governments and outsourcing? by lowsinon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Revolution no longer occurs in the developed world in the classical sense. It is now done with wallets and votes, and I'm glad to be participating fully in the eventual decline of irresponsible business.

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      What is it with layered approaches? Is it because it works from cakes to network security?
  3. Good news for Canadians by Zalgon+26+McGee · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Imagine, a government actually concerned about rampant abuses by the American Executive branch, and attempting to protect its citizens.

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    Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman

  4. it happens all the time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I work for a company that assists with clinical trials across the world. One of the things we do is store medical data until the trial is over and we can send all the data to the sponsors of the trial. No trial run out of Canada has ever let us store data or back up data to the US. One significant downside to this is that we now have unnessary extra servers in canada, which increases our deployments and our maintenece work load

  5. Patriot Act Aside ... by garett_spencley · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not really sure how "news worthy" this is. As one example, the Ontario Education Act prohibits public schools in Ontario from using text books that are not written by Canadian authors.

    The Canadian government trying to keep things in Canada is very standard practice. I didn't RTFA and I'm sure it mentions the Patriot Act, but I really doubt the Patriot Act is the sole reason that they won't outsource hosting companies to the US. Their policy is most likely that they can not outsource anything to anywhere outside of Canada unless they have no choice.

    1. Re:Patriot Act Aside ... by Cragen · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Agreed. I doubt any American gov't. agencies host any of their data outside the USA. Indeed, I doubt there is any gov't. anywhere that stores its data anywhwere outside its own borders. What an idiotic article.

      C

    2. Re:Patriot Act Aside ... by Silvrmane · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The reason is that Canadian companies are required by law to adhere to the principles of the PIDPEDA act. Because of the Patriot Act in the US, and its provisions for examination of private data, by thanywhere, at any time, for reasons of national security, there is no way to guarantee the privacy of Canadian data stored on US servers. Therefore they cannot be used, QED.

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      planet texture maps and more
  6. "Cloud computing" has other problems by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From capacity to "service level agreements" that guarantee little, cloud computing has business problems.

    I went to this talk at Stanford by the head of "cloud computing" at Amazon. Technically, Amazon's approach to "cloud computing" is quite impressive. As a business, it works for a special reason - Amazon's load is 4X greater than normal during the buying season before Xmas. Amazon has to size their data centers for the Xmas buying season. For the rest of the year they have vast excess capacity. That's why Amazon's "cloud" is so cheap to use.

    So Amazon's "cloud" is a great service, unless you need it during November and December.

  7. Not just governments by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But, I think the summary doesn't make it sufficiently clear that this is just government IT departments, not all information technology in Canada. Private citizens and businesses can still do as they wish.
    It is not just governments. Universities and other institutions have obligations under Canadian privacy laws. If they store data in the US, for example by using GMail accounts or online question services from text book companies, the US government can gain access to private data on Canadian students and the University will then be liable for a breach of privacy under Canadian law.

    This has meant that at least some Canadian Universities are looking at implementing policies which forbid the storing of data in the US. The result undoubtedly will have some economic impact on the US since now either US companies will have to invest in Canadian based servers or be automatically disqualified from bidding on IT contracts (although I also understand that the US government can force US companies to reveal data even if it is not stored in the US so it may rule out any US company). This is not just hypothetical either - to my knowledge it has already affected contract decisions.