Originally Posted by
toffeez
Isn't this 'cloud' just marketing terminology and it's really a dusty old server in someone's back yard? I wouldn't store my aunty's birthday photos there, let alone vitally important data.
The term 'The Cloud' really means remote storage somewhere. For air safety this could be NTSB or AAIB servers or wherever. The main point being that it is not on or part of the device doing the recording of the data. So instead of the aircraft recording to a device secreted somewhere in the aircraft that then has to be found and decoded if it survived, the data is immediately available for decoding if there is an emergency. Allowing SAR and investigation to start immediately after an incident. By putting the storage in the NTSB (or similar) it should allay the concerns that some pilots have of management misusing the data.