Compliance Framework Applicable to Cloud Providers
Rules governing regulated cloud operations
Operating in the cloud doesn't exempt an organization from complying with the regulations that apply to it, such as personal data protection or financial or health sector rules, and understanding which compliance framework applies to each cloud provider is essential to avoid penalties or losing contracts with demanding customers. This means verifying which certifications the provider holds, where data is physically stored according to residency requirements, and what contractual controls exist to demonstrate compliance to an external auditor, since legal responsibility before the regulator usually still falls on the customer organization and not only on the provider. This matters in practice because the same cloud provider may fully comply with a standard in one region and not offer the same guarantees in another. A concrete example is a company that processes health data and must verify that its cloud provider signs a specific agreement for processing sensitive data before migrating any regulated system to that platform.