The cloud has arrived down under! Well at any rate it has registered on the radar (weather radar?) of our Government officials.

Last month the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) has issued a paper on Cloud Computing considerations [pdf] that aims to “assist agencies to perform a risk assessment to determine the viability of using cloud computing services.”

This came hot on the heels of the Federal Privacy Minister voicing his concerns with the compatibility of cloud services and the National Privacy Principles and has been followed up by the Victorian Privacy Commissioner releasing a Cloud Computing information sheet to give "a brief overview of how the Information Privacy Act 2000 (Vic) applies to cloud computing technologies"

Personally, I'm happy to see privacy concerns are getting some serious consideration. I'm certainly not anti-cloud, in many ways it is very cool, but I don't want to see businesses running headlong into a potentially disastrous (security & privacy-wise) situation without giving the consequences due consideration. Firm Cloud standards and Government guidelines (and industry guidelines -eg: ASIC) will go a long way to helping any move to the Cloud be successful in the long run (again from a security & privacy perspective).
Assuming you cloud service is up and running that is! (sorry for the cheap shot Amazon!)

Finally on privacy, this week is Privacy Awareness Week, so go and check your facebook privacy settings (because they change pretty often!)