Cloud Computing is the process of two different cross roads meeting their friends and trying to carry them along to provide services of similar nature. With the coming of Internet of Things advanced data structures have become a reality. Cloud Computing has the capacity to handle massive amount of data which can store and retrieve data from anywhere at all times. Business, education, healthcare and research and development will be at the receiving end of a huge advantage when incorporated in Big Data Cloud Computing. The larger segment of cloud computing has always been data protection. But the intentional acts, cybercrimes, and infringements committed in the cloud need urgent legal control. The users and the providers have to be protected alike since not only a huge amount of data is lost but a huge economic disaster probably awaits them because of infringements occurring at the level of cloud. Since the nature of cloud technology is omnipresent on the globe, all the cybercrime committed on the internet would also be committed with greater magnitude due to this very reason. The cyber framework has to be revised at the international level. Out of different conventions enacted and ratified the European Council Convention on Cyber Crime is the first one. With 51 members signing the instrument and 39 of them ratifying it in the glare of the fact the results arising from such treaties cannot to be promising because they are often vague and difficult to interpret.
JURISDICTIONAL HURDLES AND THEIR STAGES
Treaties are more or less termed as soft power due to lack of mechanism to punish the states for the misconducts. States violating the guidelines of the treaties cannot be called up for violating the conditions of the treaty since most of the provisions happen to not be binding on them. In the light of the constitutional privacy concerns the cybercrime treaty has been evaluated as the least effective of all. Cybercrime Treaty can be used in respect of cloud computing for data protection however there are jurisdictionary issues. The jurisdictional problems can be categorized into three stages. The Treaty is silent pertaining to the point where law and enforcement of country A need access to data in country B. In cases where the treaty does not even make mutual agreement binding, arriving at a solution becomes difficult. A situation where access to data prevails in one country which is owned by a citizen of another country lands in no legal solution at all.
When cybercrime has been committed in the cloud investigator of the country where the commission has taken place will have to contact the service provider of the same country for providing information stored in an alternate country. Legal possibilities in such cases are still unclear. In the Belgium Yahoo case the concept of electronic service provider for facilitation of the above purpose was widely interpreted. This is where the criminal code for cloud can be developed. Extra territorial application of Jurisdiction with multiple countries participating and cloud computing becomes a necessity. Explicit criminal acts of perpetrators would come to surface and they will be convicted for such offences covering incidental or peripheral conduct. Prosecution in cloud crime would be slightly difficult as a few countries has United States have 45 different statutes one of which makes the act of accessing a protected computer, criminal offence. Few examples of this maybe Wire Tap Act, The Electronic Communication Privacy Act, or The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Collection of evidence, investigation, and preservation in the virtual environment have become very complicated and challenging.
Challenges of international law have to be combated for which an international regime is the need of the hour for keeping pace with technological developments and problems that occur because of the defendant being a foreign national amidst lack of trans border mechanism for search and seizure. One of the possible solutions for this is also hybrid in nature. In general cloud computing is forced to travel through a web of regulations. Organizations like the United Nations can harmonize cloud computing regulations by surrendering before enforcement mechanisms. Harms related to cloud computing need promulgation of a specific regulation. Third party agreement is necessary for allocation of cloud space and regulation by specific set of laws.
Criminal activities in cloud can be intercepted using intelligence agencies. In case of an international law regime extra territorial jurisdiction would become a reality so that foreign national can be tried by a nation in which the cause of action has arisen. In a global regime, harmonization of state laws creates a greater leverage for avoiding conflict of laws in addition to which uniform International Cloud Policy would make supervision easier. Public private partnership and cooperation among different states in cloud space allocation would resolve the dispute amicably. The world has shrunk into a saturated dot com. Cloud Computing has opened avenues for a paradigm shift in information technology with formidable challenges. The worst casualty is data. With numerous ID stealers, intruders and international pilferers software engineering innovations can address the cluster of harm pertaining to data protection to which the world is being exposed to. India ought to join the Global partnership for overcoming such data protection hurdles.