Data Privacy in Cloud Computing - An Empirical Study in the Financial Industry

Cloud computing is of growing interest due to its potential for delivering scalable and self-managed services. Financial institutions, as “critical users” of cloud computing services, are still slow-going and careful in the usage of clouds, since outsourcing data from a “secure” internal IT infrastructure to an external cloud poses multiple data privacy issues. This paper provides an assessment of the relevance of data privacy requirements, based on interviews with eight representatives of a global international German bank that operates in over 50 countries. Our results indicate that despite technical advancement, administrative countermeasures and legal agreements, certain data privacy issues still form obstacles for the adoption of cloud computing by financial institutions.