[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Google Cloud has expressed optimism about the reform of the government cloud security certification (CSAP) system.
Google Cloud: "Innovation Will Occur if the CSAP System Is Reformed"
Jang Hwajin, President of Google Cloud Korea, said at a media briefing during 'Next 22 Recap: Seoul' on the 22nd, “I don’t know which direction the government will take regarding the Cloud Security Assurance Program (CSAP),” adding, “If it changes, Google Cloud will also obtain certification accordingly and be able to actively engage in public projects.”
When asked about Google Cloud’s stance on CSAP, Jang said, “If CSAP regulations are relaxed and public customers have more choices, there will be various benefits, and a lot of innovation will occur through healthy market competition.”
He continued, “Google Cloud has good references in many public markets such as the United States, Australia, Singapore, Japan, and Europe, though not in Korea,” and added, “We believe we can introduce these to Korean public customers and help drive innovation.” He also said, “Since we don’t know how CSAP will change in the future, we are monitoring the situation and preparing the certification process accordingly.”
Concerns Over Domestic Discrimination Due to CSAP Grading System
CSAP was first introduced in 2016. All private cloud companies providing services to public institutions are required to obtain this certification. To receive this certification, conditions include disclosing source code and physically separating cloud servers for public institutions from private cloud servers.
Despite global cloud service providers (CSPs) dominating 80% of the private cloud market, they have been unable to enter the domestic public cloud market because they do not meet requirements such as physical network separation.
In response, the government announced plans to reform CSAP into a grading system. The purpose of this reform is to ease certification burdens for cloud services handling relatively low-importance data and to open the public sector market to domestic cloud companies so they can attempt various innovations, thereby revitalizing the cloud ecosystem.
However, contrary to the government’s policy intent, concerns have arisen that the transition to a grading system will not expand demand for domestic companies but rather allow the introduction of overseas cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft (MS), and Google, sparking immediate controversy.
This is because relaxing the physical network separation condition is expected to make it easier for foreign providers to enter the public market. Criticism has also been raised that domestic companies, which have invested costs and completed physical network separation in public zones to obtain CSAP certification under domestic law, could be unfairly disadvantaged.
The government had planned to prepare detailed standards and measures for implementing the grading system by October and to promote revisions to the supporting ordinances, but the introduction and implementation of the system have been postponed due to opposition from the industry and the National Assembly.
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