Over the past few months, we have been working with industry and agencies to produce a series of Better Practice Guides for Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (FMA Act) agencies on the key financial, legal and privacy concerns agencies may face when considering cloud-based services.

In November 2011, we released draft versions of the guides for public comment.  Below, we now provide the links to the finalised versions of these guides. The guides have been developed to reflect Australian Government FMA Act agencies’ responsibilities in the context of the Australian legislative and regulatory environment.

AGIMO is aware of the global issues surrounding the privacy and security of information in the public cloud and is working internationally and domestically to mitigate the impacts of these issues through channels such as the International Standards Organisation / International Electrotechnical Commission Joint Technical Committee 1 (ISO/IEC JTC1) and the Australian National Standing Committee on Cloud Computing.

Privacy and Cloud Computing for Australian Government Agencies

• Privacy and Cloud Computing for Australian Government Agencies PDF 215KB
• Privacy and Cloud Computing for Australian Government Agencies DOC 133KB

Negotiating the Cloud – Legal Issues in Cloud Computing Agreements

• Negotiating the Cloud – Legal Issues in Cloud Computing Agreements PDF 249KB
• Negotiating the Cloud – Legal Issues in Cloud Computing Agreements DOC 166KB

Financial Considerations for Government use of Cloud Computing

• Financial Considerations for Government use of Cloud Computing PDF 176KB
• Financial Considerations for Government use of Cloud Computing DOC 131KB

These Better Practice Guides form part of the Cloud Framework -  a Stream One deliverable of the Australian Government Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper.

Additional guidance will be prepared for agencies on other aspects of cloud computing as necessary.  This may include areas such as governance of community clouds and further guidance on business management and procurement practices.

Update: these documents are available on the Department of Finance and Deregulation’s cloud computing page.