Aitizaz Hassan ISLAMABAD, Feb. 21 (INP-WealthPK): The federal cabinet has approved the Cloud First Policy and Personal Data Protection Bill formulated by the Ministry of Information Technology and telecommunications to ensure the privacy of online data, which is crucial to accelerate Pakistan’s push for digitisation. The Cloud First Policy has listed five classes of data, which include open data in the public sector to make the government open and accountable and increase citizen participation. The other one is public data related to the public sector that is non-confidential and is publicly available. It is followed by restricted data related to public sector businesses, operations and services, which is not sensitive in nature. The next one is confidential data, which is the information not intended to be published. It can be accessed only by a certain group of people having proper authorisation and which justifies moderate protective measures. The last one is secret data which is the information that requires the highest level of protection from serious threats. Its breach can pose a threat to life or public security, cause financial losses, serious damage to public interests, etc. “The policy provides a gateway for investment by international cloud entrepreneurs,” an official of the ministry told WealthPK on condition of anonymity. “The policy aims to provide a conducive environment to cloud service providers to be the partners with the government in its digital transformation journey,” the official added. “International clouds companies are welcome to invest in cloud computing sector of Pakistan,” the official maintained, adding, “The cloud policy will give a great opportunity to local digital market to align with the international digital market.” The ministry official said if companies like Amazon take interest in cloud computing in Pakistan it will defiantly help unleash potential of local digital entrepreneurship. The official maintained that the cloud policy will help develop a national data centre hub, promote investment in the sector, push for digital growth and ensure availability of a trusted hosting infrastructure to secure data from cyberattacks. The official informed WealthPK that the cloud computing is already in practice in developed countries, which have incorporated the technology in their software operating systems to digitalise and centralise the information at a massive level in a sustainable way. “Cloud computing digitalises networks, servers, storages, applications and services in a secured way that can be rapidly provided and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” “Cloud computing improves transparency and accountability in the public administration. The cloud model may be owned, managed, and operated by a business, academic, or a public sector entity, or some combination of them.” The communication ministry’s official said the cloud software will protect 40 divisions and more than 600 affiliated departments of federal government from cyberattacks. Provincial ministries and their affiliated departments have also been offered to benefit from the cloud policy. Governments across the world are increasing their spending on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to provide better citizen-centric services with increased transparency and accountability. Pakistan is also undergoing a digital revolution and has taken numerous initiatives for the provision of ICT-based solutions. This represents a huge potential for investors to offer cloud-based infrastructure solutions to the government.