The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) today published the findings of its recent survey on government access to information, in light of recent concerns over ownership and access to cloud-based data.
Titled "Government Access to Information," CSA initiated the survey in June to collect member opinions about the revelations from Edward Snowden the US whistleblower.
In Spring 2013, the National Security Agency subcontractor provided evidence of the PRISM program, involving US government access to information from telecommunications and internet providers via secret court orders under by the USA Patriot Act.
With the survey, CSA also aimed to understand how it impacted attitudes about using public cloud providers and other broadly available internet services.
According to CSA in its survey report, Snowden's incident “led to a great deal of debate and soul searching about appropriate access to an individual's digital information, both within the US and any other country.”
The CSA survey was conducted online via SurveyMonkey from 25 June 2013 to 9 July 2013. It received close to 500 responses from CSA members worldwide.
Of the 207 responses from self-identified non-US residents, 56% of them were now less likely to use US-based cloud providers, in light of recent revelations about government access to customer information.
Close to one-third of the respondents found no impact on their usage of US-based cloud providers. Notably, 10% cancelled a project that would use US-based cloud providers. (See figure 1 below)
Figure 1. (For non-US residents only) Does the Snowden Incident make your company more or less likely to use US-based cloud providers?
Source: "Government Access to Information 2013 survey," Cloud Security Alliance