Exploring the impact of cloud computing on existing South African regulatory frameworks

Abstract

Cloud computing is considered to be a cost-effective information and communication technology (ICT) solution that, when implemented appropriately, can help mitigate challenges experienced with the use of traditional ICT, such as high costs of procurement and maintenance of ICT infrastructure within organisations (Alharbi 2017; Mohammed & Ibrahim 2015). Even though cloud computing services provide essential benefits for individuals and organisations, there are challenges that negatively impact on the public confidence regarding the adoption and use of cloud computing, as well as cloud computing competitiveness. The public confidence challenges in relation to cloud computing services foster doubt and uncertainty regarding the safety and privacy of data and the loss of control on data in the cloud computing environment. While the competitiveness challenges impede the growth of the cloud computing market as this could lead to digital monopoly, hampering the growth of new cloud services providers into the market. The challenges that impact on public confidence regarding the adoption and use of cloud computing includes security and reliability issues (Abolfazli et al. 2015; Mahler 2014; Vasiljeva, Shaikhullina & Kreslins 2017); access to underlying ICT infrastructure that enables cloud computing to thrive (i.e. broadband costs and quality issues); and regulatory, governance, and legal uncertainties (Abolfazli et al. 2015; Gillwald & Moyo 2016; Kumar & Vajpayee 2016; Vasiljeva et al. 2017). Cloud computing challenges that impact on the cloud computing market growth and competitiveness includes, but is not limited to, data portability and interoperability, vendor lock-Background: The use of cloud computing services raises policy and regulatory challenges globally, more specifically on data security and privacy, amongst other issues. There is a concern on whether South African information and communications technology (ICT) policies and regulatory frameworks are sufficient to address emerging cloud computing regulatory challenges. Therefore, this necessitates a review to determine the extent to which existing regulatory frameworks are applicable to cloud computing and the challenges thereof.