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Top1. Introduction
Cloud services are increasingly being used for a variety of purposes, including e-mail, social networking, music and video streaming, calendar and portfolio management, file storage etc. Cloud computing is not new; indeed cloud services for non-business uses have existed for many years. However we have observed in recent times the evolution of private cloud services to corporate/business applications, many of which overlap business and private domains. An online calendar for example will typically show both private and professional appointments, and the employee may want to be able to access company files through a personal device, and vice versa. This paper studies the issues that arise from such a merge of private and professional applications on a single device, introduces the term “personal cloud” for such scenarios, and presents an approach to govern such clouds from a company perspective.
With increasing market penetration of (mobile and) smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, or laptops and owing to the ubiquitous (“always-on,”) nature of these devices, meaning that they have continuous and uninterrupted Internet access, private applications such as social networks and e-mail will more and more reside on the same device as corporate documents or applications such as company spreadsheets or proprietary software. Most commonly, both types of services are used interchangeably in both business and private environments, e.g., employees usually have a private and a corporate e-mail address, but both are accessed through a common interface or even using the same e-mail application. This observation is supported by the BYOD (“bring your own device”) development, where companies are allowing their employees to use their personal devices at work or for work-related purposes (Scarfo, 2012). Of the many benefits BYOD offers (both to organisations and their employees), and increase in flexibility and efficiency as well as the ability to work at anytime from anywhere are considered key (Morrow, 2012). The underlying philosophy of BYOD is in line with Mark Zuckerberg’s philosophy, implemented in Facebook, that every person has only one identity (as opposed to a private and a professional one). Indeed, in an interview with David Kirkpatrick for his book, “The Facebook Effect.,” Zuckerberg is cited as saying “The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly. Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” (Zimmer, 2010)
Even though this statement is controversial from a privacy point of view, the lack of integrity is particularly pertinent, especially from a technological perspective. By way of an example, consider the daily routine of a typical knowledge worker (e.g., a bank employee). While having breakfast she wants to check on her private and business e-mails. Today, it is very likely that she will do this on her smartphone, tablet, or on the rather new combination “phablet” (portmanteau from phone and tablet) using two different Web services, each with individual login. Also, a third and fourth application will be needed for calendar and (quality) news, all of which with potentially different credentials. In her office, after plugging her laptop into a docking station, she will access proprietary banking software, the same e-mail and calendar services, only via a different interface. She is likely to store some files on a company cloud storage solution. Heading for a customer presentation she grabs her laptop again which is obviously able to access the aforementioned cloud storage. Many interesting scenarios emerge from this setting: During a meeting, relevant company performance figures can be accessed; on the way home a presentation can be finalized on the train; during her lunch break a quick look can be taken at photos from a relative’s vacation; during a free moment, the remainder of last night’s movie can be watched. While this may still be viewed within the realms of science fiction to some, it is only the beginning of what will soon be everyday manifestations of our 24/7 hyper-connected world in which the distinction between private and professional life is vastly blurred (Schmidt and Cohen, 2013). In other words, people will soon be living in their “personal” cloud, a term that was first mentioned in a 2011 Forrester report in 2011 and also picked up by the Web blog readwriteweb.com around the same time.