Our “Seeing Through the Cloud” report has received one of the inaugural University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) Academic Citizenship Awards for 2016!
The project was also featured in a recent Varsity Article “A constitutional black hole” as well as a Moment of Privacy Video from Option consommateurs

Moving to the Cloud? Many Canadian organizations are doing so, contracting with third party vendors to provide a wide range of digital services over the global Internet. “Moving to the Cloud” really means creating content and storing the digital archives of information produced–including confidential, proprietary and deeply personal information–outside of your organization’s physical control, on someone else’s computers, somewhere else in the world.

In the short term, such extra-national outsourcing may appear to make financial sense, particularly for those in the education sector who can access these services for little to no cost, at least for a limited period of time. But what are the broader and longer-term consequences of doing so? The issues raised are especially acute now that we know the US National Security Agency, as well as similar surveillance agencies of other nations, have ready access to information in the cloud.

The authors of this report undertook a year-long study to investigate the privacy implications of using services hosted in the cloud where the data at issue would be stored, processed or routed in another nation’s jurisdiction. Our research, funded by Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner, found that contrary to widespread misconception, national jurisdiction still matters: where in the world your data is located affects which third parties can legally access it, and on what terms.

The full public report “Seeing Through the Cloud,” including detailed research reports as appendices, is available for free download alongside received commentary.

2 comments

  1. Hello,
    Reading through the report and cannot find the Framework referenced on pg. 33?
    Could you please provide a direct link?
    Much Appreciated,
    Robynne.

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