Bruton to set up cloud tech group

THE MINISTER for Enterprise has announced plans to establish an implementation group to examine how the public sector can best adopt the latest cloud-computing technologies.

Scheduled to hold its first meeting later this month, it will include representatives from relevant Government departments, the Data Protection Commissioner, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland.

Richard Bruton said it was crucial that the Government, as a major user of IT in the economy, took a lead to provide “opportunities and economies of scale for growing businesses in this sector”.

“Ireland is extremely well placed to take advantage of the rapidly growing international potential of cloud computing,” he told a conference on the new technology in Dublin yesterday, organised by Public Affairs Ireland.

He cited a recent report commissioned by Microsoft which estimated that by 2014, the cloud computing industry here could be worth €9.5 billion and employ 8,600 people. The economic downturn made it more urgent than ever “to seize the efficiencies” offered by the latest technologies, Mr Bruton said.

Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes earlier told delegates that a key challenge would be to guarantee the safety and security of personal data.

Mr Hawkes said there was a paradox at the heart of the new technology in that holding data in the “cloud” could be both a risk and a protection. “The massive concentration of data in the cloud is an invitation to attackers, but such concentration can provide the economies of scale that justify expenditure on more robust security.”

Organisations wishing to outsource sensitive data needed to get assurances from cloud providers on issues such as the robustness of access controls, data back-up systems and procedures in the event of data breaches, he said. Equally, cloud providers would have to remain vigilant to the security obligations imposed on data processors by various jurisdictions.

In 2006, a Belgium-based interbank network was found to have violated European data protection laws by passing details of banking transactions, under subpoena, to the US government which was monitoring suspect transactions linked to terrorism.