Data in the Cloud: Whose Control and Whose Consent?

Abstract

Present-day firms process a huge volume of personal data under conditions that they impose. Such data seems to be the new “diamond” that is, stored in the clouds or, kept at companies’ storage facilities. In this paper, scenarios are posed to detect uncertainties that might, under existing laws and norms, occur in the future and it is examined whether personal data could be treated as content of databases and, thus, protected by Intellectual Property laws. Finding that such rules should not govern such data, attention is drawn to the key role that the data subject has to play with regard to the processing of her information.

Keywords: personal data, database, cloud computing, privacy