There’s good news and bad news as public sector thinkers on things technological contemplate the approach of cloud computing.

 

The good news, according to a new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, is that people have already embraced cloud computing.

 

The bad news is that they still can’t get their heads around the privacy and security side of it.

 

Which may well mean that e-government is not about to meet the cloud – now or, frankly, ever.

 

The basic notion of cloud computing – a user friendly place to keep data and storage – is enormously appealing on one level. Taken to an extreme, it points to a world in which people don’t really need computers; they just need access to them now and then, wherever.

 

To the researchers at Pew, this brave new world is already both here and successful: “Some 69% of online Americans use webmail services, store data online, or use software programs such as word processing applications whose functionality is located on the web,” they report.

 

Sounds terrific, and in a sense it is – except that it’s an analysis that’s heavily dependent on the success of programs like hotmail and gmail, which are pale imitations of what the theorists of cloud computing have in mind. Those deep thinkers reach way beyond simple e-mail exchange, to the entire range of programs, applications and data.

 

And data is the sticking point, because the same Pew project found the same Americans leery of the same privacy and security concerns which have bedeviled e-government evangelists for 15 years or more.

 

“(U)sers report high levels of concern when presented with scenarios in which companies may put their data to uses of which they may not be aware,” Pew reported. Specifically:

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·         90 per cent of cloud application users say they would be very concerned if the company at which their data were stored sold it to another party.

·         80 per cent say they would be very concerned if companies used their photos or other data in marketing campaigns.

·         68 per cent of users of at least one of the six cloud applications say they would be very concerned if companies who provided these services.

 

Caveats abound, to be sure. This latest project by Pew was set in a private sector context, not a government setting. Plus: Its sample was exclusively American.

 

Still, the findings amount to a reminder of ongoing public concerns about the use of public data. It’s still a poser after all these years, one that government tech managers will ignore at their peril.

Tags: e-Government, Privacy, Security