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@article{206183,
        author = {ONWE, FESTUS CHIJIOKE and CHINONSO JOB and NWOKPURU SAMUEL ABAFU},
        title = {Ethical, Social, Regulatory, and Sustainability Dimensions of Zero Trust Security in Cloud Computing: A Critical Review},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {2},
        pages = {696-703},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=206183},
        abstract = {Zero Trust Security (ZTS) has emerged as the dominant architectural response to the collapse of the network perimeter in cloud-native, remote-first computing environments. By replacing implicit, location-based trust with continuous, risk aware verification of every user, device, and transaction, ZTS addresses well-documented technical weaknesses of perimeterbased defence. However, the same mechanisms that make ZTS technically effective—persistent behavioural monitoring, automated risk scoring, and dense telemetry collection—introduce a distinct set of ethical, social, regulatory, and environmental tensions that are not yet systematically synthesised in the literature. This paper presents a structured narrative review of these four dimensions. We show that continuous verification, while reducing the attack surface, raises documented concerns about workplace surveillance, employee autonomy, and trust fatigue; that risk- and trust-scoring algorithms inherit the same bias and opacity failure modes long documented in algorithmic risk-assessment literature; that compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and ISO/IEC 27001 is necessary but insufficient to resolve these tensions; and that the computational intensity of continuous, AI-assisted verification creates a measurable sustainability cost that the cybersecurity literature has only recently begun to quantify. We synthesise findings from peer-reviewed sources spanning 2010–2026 and conclude with a structured research agenda directed at closing the gap between Zero Trust’s technical maturity and its socio-ethical governance maturity.},
        keywords = {Zero Trust Security, cloud computing, algorithmic bias, workplace surveillance, GDPR, HIPAA, sustainable computing, cybersecurity ethics.},
        month = {July},
        }