Cloud Computing: Musings from within Regulated Industries

Enterprise Social is taking the world by storm. Lead by companies such as Salesforce.com (Chatter), Microsoft (Yammer), and Jive, organizations are finding more efficient and effective ways to collaborate with internal employees and external customers alike.

Recently, we authored a blog post entitled, "Is Salesforce.com Chatter FINRA Compliant?" In that blog post, we discussed whether or not Salesforce Chatter, as a form of social media, satisfies FINRA regulations. To summarize, Salesforce Chatter is not FINRA compliant. But FINRA is not the only regulatory organization that provides rules around electronic communications use and compliance. Organizations that are subject to Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA or the FDA should also take note. Here's what you need to know, regardless of the regulatory entity that governs your organization.

Protecting patient privacy is more than just a good business practice.  HIPAA regulations strictly limit access to information contained in medical records.  Everything from patient names to basic symptoms come under the heading of protected information.

Cloud computing services have revolutionized business practices across industry lines. The ability to store information off-site reduces costs for service providers and makes collaboration with multiple locations easy and quick. The benefits to services like Dropbox, Google Drive and Skydrive are easy to see, but the question of regulatory compliance is a big one for those in the Financial Services industry. The SEC and FINRA enforce security guidelines with regard to how personal client information and other non-public information is stored and accessed. The only industry that might face more restrictive regulations is the health care industry. Given the need to satisfy both agencies, Financial Services organizations must look at several factors when considering a migration to the Cloud.

Social media use in regulated industries such as Financial Services and Healthcare is beginning to take hold. The benefits are clear - market your products, communicate with customers and get a pulse on your brand image - but it's important to adopt such technologies while adhering industry regulations.

Companies that operate in certain industries such as Financial Services are subject to regulatory requirements that sometimes make it difficult to implement technologies without having ancillary solutions in place. Regulations outlined by FINRA, the SEC, SARBOX and HIPAA often require all forms of electronic communications to be journaled, indexed, retained, and discoverable on read-only (WORM) media for a specified number of years.