Emerging legal issues in cloud computing an analytical study

Abstract

Cloud computing has brought a paradigm shift in the computing world by making computing resources ubiquitous. The cloud servers are scattered throughout the world that makes access of computers easy. The increasing dependence on cloud computing by individuals has led to data explosion which is fuelling a new economy with new business models like e- commerce, social media platforms and audio and video web streaming applications. It has also led to a steep change in the societal and cultural norms. However, the ubiquity of computing resources caused by cloud computing has made the data of individuals beyond their physical control and has raised important concerns like protection and privacy of the data, jurisdiction issue, issue of intellectual property rights in the data that is processed with cloud computing technology. Since the technology has raised novel legal issues, the study is focused on the analysis of the laws of different countries to find solution for the above- mentioned novel legal issues raised by cloud technology. Upon analysis, it is found that data protection and data privacy is a major threat impeding the smooth adoption of cloud computing technology. The laws of different countries are scattered and there is no concrete law at the international level which causes lack of uniformity. The legal development in India is lagging behind. The need for a universal model law for all the countries is required. India requires an urgent need to pass laws on data protection and cloud computing. newline