File storage in the cloud is becoming a popular tool for many people and businesses. There are many services which offer you free or low cost storage for video, pictures, and other digital data. In addition there are many online backup systems available which permit you to store your critical data on remote servers as part of your backup strategy. These can be very valuable and worthwhile tools and are not to be ignored.
One overriding question occurs however....Do you know where your data goes? 
Where is all of this material being stored? is it local, international or wherever. Not important? I would suggest for some data it is critical you know where the repository may be.
If you are in Canada, as we are (Burlington ON), you may want to choose services which store your data in Canada. There are backup services which guarantee that their data is stored in Canadian servers...secured as you would expect but Canadian based. This means that any litigation, government regulation and laws governing the use of the data and access to it is under Canadian law.
If your data is stored in the US, or even more risky, overseas somewhere the legal framework for the storage and access to your data could be very different. The US has legislation which permits government access to data which is stored in the US. Any litigation which might occur could be under a US jurisdiction. If your data has been routed offshore somewhere the issues are even more challenging to consider.
For personal data that is not sensitive, knowing specifically where a provider is hosting your data may not be critical. For business file storage then knowing where the data is secured and what legislative framework is involved with the site is absolutely critical. Don't assume your data is safe just because your supplier is local....know where they are putting your information.
Lee K
Online hosted file storage site....an easy way to organize your records.
