Megan Richards, acting deputy director-general of the Information Society and Media Directorate-General at the European Commission, said that personal data should not have to be located within the EU in order for EU rules governing its processing and storage to apply.
The cloud does not stop at national boundaries," Richards said at a cloud computing conference in London last week, according to a report by Techworld.
"You shouldnt care where the data is as long as it is secure and meets regulatory requirements, so now the question is how to ensure that how to make sure that when we use cloud resources, personal data does meet those requirements, Richards said.
Cloud computing refers to the use of computers and software on an internet-based network to do information processing rather than the use of local computing resources. It allows internet users to access or store information without owning the software to do it and many online companies, such as Google, operate huge servers that store the data and deliver it to users.
In January the European Commission published draft legislation aimed at reforming the EU data protection framework. Its proposed General Data Protection Regulation would introduce a single data protection law across all 27 EU member states which companies based outside the EU borders would be subject to if they process personal data of EU citizens.
Richards said that the European Parliament is currently assessing the plans and that "it usually takes a year" for legislation to be passed by the Parliament, according to a report by The Register news website.
However, the current data protection framework in Europe is creating problems for researchers who store information in the cloud, an IT expert at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has said.
CERN's openlab project sees private sector firms invest in research by scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider. The physics experiments produce a mass of data that CERN shares with its private sector investors.
Bob Jones, head of openlab at CERN, said though that capacity issues were a problem. He said that the body is to conduct a pilot scheme that would see cloud computing utilised to move data produced from the experiments between CERN's own systems and 'data centres' in the cloud operated by its commercial partners.
However, current EU data protection laws are a hindrance to CERN's collaboration plans, Jones said.
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Security of personal data in the cloud more important than where it is stored, EU official says