Digital Trust: What it means and how institutions can gain it
In a time when data security breaches, cookie workarounds and advertising browser tracking take place every day, how much trust do you have in organizations to keep your information safe online? Moreover, how much trust do you have in institutions, like ASU, to do the same?
On April 22, digital trust and learner agency were the topic of discussion at ASU’s Innov8: A Speaker Series. The university’s Digital Trust leaders — Dr. Donna Kidwell, Chief Information Security and Digital Trust Officer; Kate Giovacchini, Director of Digital Trust Initiatives; and Dr. Timothy Summers, Director of Digital Trust Initiatives and the host of Innov8 — gathered with more than 85 people virtually for a highly interactive conversation about what digital trust means, what ASU is doing and where the team wants to go.
Kidwell described this Innov8 installment as an extension of her Data Privacy Day conversation in February 2021: “At ASU, technology is embedded across the campus, as most universities do,” said Kidwell. “But we also have an extraordinary commitment to more than 80,000 students this year in our ASU Online cohort. As we grow our digital footprint and expand, Digital Trust must be at the center of that.”
But wait…what is Digital Trust?
An industry-spanning term, ASU defines it as Digital Trust (DT), which centers on the confidence, flexibility, and empowerment in the relationships between individuals and organizations regarding their data. At ASU, DT encompasses everything from cybersecurity to technology enablers like distributed ledger technologies and self-sovereign identity.
And at the core of digital trust, is trust itself. “Digital is a modifier of the world's trust,’ and trust is really our experiences between people,” said Giovacchini. “Trust is an action we take to determine that someone is trustworthy; we decide to overcome uncertainty to meet a certain gain.”
Trust framework
When making a trust decision, how do we know whom and how to trust? “To earn trust, we must pursue actions that deserve trust and make those actions visible to others,” said Giovacchini. "When we make a trust decision, we try to determine if the person, process, or organization we’re going to put our faith in has the ability, integrity, and benevolence to follow through and earn our trust."
Now, let’s apply this framework to digital trust — the confidence, flexibility, and empowerment in the relationships between individuals and organizations when it comes to your data.
When considering who or what you should trust, ask yourself these questions:
Question 1: Do they have the ability?
In this instance, ability is defined more broadly as the competencies, skills, knowledge and expertise. Put the framework into action by asking yourself the following questions:
- Has this organization built a safe environment for all the data I’m giving? That they might create about me?
Do they have a robust security posture to protect my data from threats?
When I build or buy new tech, does it align with security, ethics and sustainability policies that I agree with?
Question 2: Do they have integrity?
Defined as the principles, ethics, oaths and character to be trusted, put the integrity portion of the framework into action by asking yourself the following questions:
Do they do what you say they’re going to do?
Do their principles align with mine?
Does their idea of privacy align with my idea?
Do they adopt and follow through on a code of ethics that outlines their relationship with me? Do I agree with that code?
Question 3: Do they have benevolence?
Benevolence is an act of goodwill, good intentions and altruism. Put the framework into action by asking yourself the following questions:
What are their goals and motives with my data?
What do they do with my data?
Can I see what data they have collected about me? Will they help me interpret it so I understand?
How do they create value with my data? Are they selling it, renting it or manipulating it?
How do institutions gain trust?
“Digital trust is harder than trust,” said Giovacchini. “At institutions, there are often so many people that it makes this trust paradigm more difficult to navigate.” So, what can they do? Feel empowered to reduce uncertainty and be clear about their ability, integrity and benevolence, she adds.
Paramount across this rapidly growing field is fostering communities of practice and education that prioritize ethics and individual agency. “We should design these digital experiences with an ethical underpinning, with a sense of what’s the right thing to do, as opposed to what can we do, and then keep the learners and our faculty in our community at the center of all of those decisions,” said Kidwell.