Amazon, Google and Microsoft joined other tech heavyweights likes IBM, Salesforce/Slack, Atlassian, SAP and Cisco in agreeing to the Trusted Cloud Principles, a broad set of principles that basically say that these companies are committed to protecting the privacy and security of their customers’ data in all jurisdictions through policy and technology.
The Trusted Cloud Principles were developed to address the industry’s concern that certain regulations and proposals will make it hard to do business and also may force companies to hand over customer data without being able to notify customers.
“Trusted Cloud Principles signatories are committed to protecting the rights of our customers. We have agreed to strong principles that ensure we compete while maintaining consistent human rights standards,” the companies said in a statement.
Broadly, those principles include:
- Governments should support cross-border data flows;
- Governments should engage customers first, with only narrow exceptions;
- Customers should have a right to notice;
- Cloud providers should have a right to protect customers’ interests; and
- Governments should address conflicts of law.
The companies also said that they are committed to working with governments to ensure digital connectivity among nations and promote public safety, while also protecting privacy and data security in the cloud.
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These rules come just days after another cloud framework was proposed by the EDM Council, a cross-industry trade association for data management and analytics. That framework was more detailed but included components about data governance and accountability as well as classifying, data accessibility and usage.