Records in the Cloud: Authenticity and jurisdiction

A rapidly growing number of public and private organizations are turning to the use of Cloud Services in order to reduce the cost of creating, managing and storing records without fully understanding the risks being assumed to security, privacy, compliance and, perhaps most importantly, the accuracy, reliability and authenticity of those records. Added to those risks are the legal and liability issues that arise when the contracting party, service provider and data center where storage occurs all reside in separate jurisdictions. This paper presents the Records in the Cloud research project that seeks to address these hazards by developing methodologies and instruments to assess risk, create guidelines for contractual agreements with service providers, and draft model policies and legislation concerning jurisdiction.