LA scales back on Google email contract

googlelogoWhilst the headline focuses on Google, it was a change in approach to security that negated the possibility of using any cloud-based email service within the LAPD

Google won a major contract in 2009 to proivde cloud-based email services for Los Angeles city departments, beating Microsoft in the process. The contract had a major setback in 2011 when the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) decided Google’s service did “not have the technical ability to comply with the city’s security requirements.”

However, the concern was not specific to Google. City officials went on to say that their security requirements are “not currently compatible with cloud computing.”

The security requirements were not included in the original requirements when the contract was awarded and apparently have been written based on the assumption that law enforcement agencies will store their own data, hence the incompatibility with any general cloud computing service. No surprise that we are starting to see private variants of cloud services and data centers being created by major vendors, intended for government contracts.

Source: LA Times, December 2011