End of conference 1st day at U+WE in Bristol

Hello to all!

This last session today was for Cloud Computing in HealthCare and Biomedicine. The first speaker, Dr Nick Papanikolaou talked about dealing with privacy and security in cloud computing. The resources grow and sink as the needs require, as such cloud computing is about elastic access to resources. Privacy can pose a challenge as rules and regulations differ in different countries and may conflict with each other. For example, when one rents a cloud, there is not necessarily any guarantee where the data will be stored. The user has no control over the data which can be used for unauthorised purpose, whereas in case the data is stolen or misused there is no compensation provided. Some of the solutions discussed include a cloud computing information assurance framework, trusted computing, encryption of cloud storage, just in time decryption, obfuscation and virtual private clouds.

Dr Hanene Boussi Rahmouni discussed about the concerns in worldwide healthcare and medical research, including cost, quality, agility and exchange of expertise. The cloud offers solutions to the first 3 problems but the issue of privacy and security still remains. A governance framework is required whereby metrics will help ensure measurable and by-design compliance for both human and system processes.

Luciano Floridi completed the discussion on the ethical challenges of cloud computing. Ownership is being more and more ‘deflated’ as more and more people tend to share and exchange resources whose ownership and maintenance is unnecessary and unwanted. Addressing the digital divide then comes in the picture, meaning availability, accessibility and also usability of resources. The cloud offers opportunities as it is affordable, dependable, safe and fast. For the problem of privacy, accountability is proposed whereby users’ actions are traceable and their identity knowable by the provider.

Dinner time, see you tomorrow!