Privacy monitoring framework for enhancing transparency in cloud computing

Abstract

The lack of proper privacy and security mechanisms to monitor the sensitive information entrusted to cloud service providers by consumers is a barrier to broader adoption of cloud computing. Despite the many benefits that cloud computing offer, many businesses are still skeptical about how privacy is handled in the cloud. This owes to the fact that with cloud computing, the storage and processing of private information are done on remote machines that are not owned or even managed by the customers. All that the customer can see is a virtual infrastructure built on top of possibly non-trusted physical hardware or operating environments. There is a need for technical mechanism to address users' privacy concerns in order to allow for broader adoption of the cloud. In this paper, we present a Privacy Monitoring Framework to help cloud customers comprehend with what happens to their data while stored in the cloud. The framework provides mechanism which enables cloud customers to trace in detail what happens to their data, where it is stored and who accesses it.