Accountability, Risk, and Trust in Cloud Services: Towards an Accountability-Based Approach to Risk and Trust Governance

In this paper we propose an approach for enhanced data protection in the cloud, based upon accountability governance. Specifically, the relationships between accountability, risk and trust are analyzed in order to suggest characteristics and means to address data governance issues involved when organizations or individuals adopt cloud computing. This analysis takes into account insights from a variety of stakeholders within cloud ecosystems obtained by running an elicitation workshop.