Cloud Computing
Lead PI: Urs Gasser
The trend towards “cloud computing” predicts real benefits. The movement of data, information, and digital activity into “the cloud,” creates new opportunities for collaborative platforms, data exchange, and large scale experimentation. However, these developments also come with real risks and potential dangers — for information privacy, security, and innovation.
These challenges require the collaboration and engagement of a wide range of actors, including representatives from government, industry, academia and other sectors. In Spring 2010, the Law Lab convened such an effort, which is evolving into a series. The first meeting, focused on the ways in which diverse constituencies can work together towards best practices in a cloud environment.
A key goal of the effort is to surface and identify issues for future discussion, scholarship, and experimentation; ongoing discussions are aiming to identify and develop concrete insights and action items, including areas for future research, policy proposals, and other “tangible” outcomes. The next workshop, held in January 2011, focused on cloud computing and interoperability; our anticipated June 2011 workshop will focus on jurisdictional issues and other questions that are raised by cross-border data flows.
