Explainer: What is Digital Trust in the Intelligent Age?

Today’s smart, connected world relies on three key factors:

• How quickly people adopt new tools.
• How can they access data?
• How well everything connects.

But none of that matters without trust. Trust is key for anyone creating or using new digital technology. Like platforms that offer easy access, such as Spinando, trust is key. It decides if people will engage, share, and adopt widely.

What is Digital Trust?

The World Economic Forum’s 2022 report states that digital trust is a promise. It means technology and its companies will protect people’s interests and honor society’s values. Tech leaders build trust by setting high standards for security, reliability, fairness, and ethics. They back this up with real actions, not talk.

• Cybersecurity
• Safety
• Interoperability
• Privacy
• Transparency
• Redressability
• Ethics
• Fairness

Trust isn’t fixed. People’s expectations and reasonable demands can change as time goes on. This is why today we recognize another dimension of digital trust – sustainability. Digital technologies use a lot of resources, such as energy and water. This means a reliable tech company needs to focus on sustainability in its work.

Why Does Earning Trust Matter?

In a time of fast change and tech growth, earning digital trust matters. This is particularly true for the new wave of smart technologies. They depend on gathering and processing data extensively. We’re seeing cracks in social trust. This is partly due to failures in cybersecurity and privacy protection. There’s also a lack of responsibility in developing new technologies. This has damaged the ties between technology firms and governments, innovators and institutions, and tech and everyday people.

In the US, the tech industry used to be the most trusted of all business sectors. But in four years, it dropped to sixth place. By 2022–2023, many Americans said they trusted tech less than other industries. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 39% of people around the globe believe innovation is poorly managed. Many feel left behind, especially with fast-growing technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).

It’s easy to see why both people and governments want to rethink society’s link with the tech sector. The sector has not kept its part of the trust bargain. Now, it is losing its social license to operate. This loss threatens the ongoing and growing use of its products. New AI models require more data. Because of this, people and businesses might prefer to keep their information private. This could cause a data drought.

But the tech sector need not accept the inevitability of mistrust – it can act to earn trust.

What’s the Role of the Tech Sector?

This focus on responsibility means these industries look to their technology suppliers, like the ICT industry. They want to be sure that smart technologies are built and used with the same trust values. As we’ve seen, trust is the result of conscious decisions by humans. Users need to make smart choices about technology. Leaders in ICT companies must make smart choices. They need to decide how to create and launch technologies that build trust.

Trust is in high demand. It may be the key factor enabling economies and people to thrive in the intelligent age. Today, it’s crucial for consumers and industries to feel confident. They need assurance that digital technologies and services will safeguard everyone’s interests. Organizations must also meet societal expectations and values.

So, the ICT sector must prove it is strategically adopting trust principles. The sector needs to go beyond general claims about ethical AI. It must clearly prove how developers include these principles in creating and using technologies. Transparency is key.

So, we reached out to members of the Forum’s ICT Strategy Officers community. We wanted to know how their companies are adopting the trust principles in the Forum’s Digital Trust Framework. The result is a set of insights grouped by the three key digital trust goals:

• Security and reliability.
• Accountability and oversight.
• Inclusivity, ethics, and responsibility.

We hope this begins a larger movement. Tech companies should clearly explain how they ensure their products are trustworthy. This can help industries, economies, and societies speed up the responsible use of technology.