We are pleased to share a guest post by dr. Ákos Süle – managing partner of Süle Law Firm.

On 28-29 September 2011, the German federal and state data protection authorities (DPAs) held they 82nd conference in Munich. They warned the cloud service providers to render such services only if they are in the position to fully comply with data protection laws.

The DPAs listed the following main criteria (our summary):

– the cloud service providers should give users detailed, open and easy-to-follow information about the technical, organizational and legal aspects

– the related service agreements should make it unambiguous where exactly the data processing will be rendered and how this could be changed

– the data security and data protections requirements should be strictly followed and preferably independent certificates should be obtained on these aspects as well

Besides, the DPAs have assured the cloud service providers about their support and called their attention to the online accessible German guide on cloud computing.

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