Achieving Trust and Compliance in the Cloud

Rich Sauer, CVP & Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft, USA

The accelerating shift from traditional on-premises information technology (“IT”) systems to cloud computing presents in-house counsel with a veritable obstacle course of compliance challenges and regulatory pitfalls. Virtually every industry today faces an expanding set of data security demands, while different countries often have their own unique privacy and data protection requirements. Even in jurisdictions where there seems to be relative certainty, the regulatory landscape can change with the stroke of a pen, as with the recent invalidation of the long-standing Safe Harbor data transfer arrangement between the EU and United States. Today’s in-house counsel must master all of these requirements, explain them to their boards, and verify that their organization complies with them.