AI-generated summary
Trust in both public and private institutions is currently facing a significant crisis, drawing attention from global forums such as the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Davos Agenda and initiatives like the Bankinter Innovation Foundation’s “Trust in the digital age” think tank. Experts identify innovation, efficiency, and ethics as crucial levers to rebuild trust, with technology serving as an essential enabler. Public distrust centers on the accuracy of information, the authenticity of third parties, and the security of personal identity and privacy. To address these concerns, a range of technological solutions collectively termed TrustTech aim to encode the reputation of data, institutions, individuals, and networks.
TrustTech encompasses three main areas. First, technologies to prevent disinformation use advanced tools like AI and network analysis to detect and combat misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation spreading online. Companies such as Graphika map social networks to identify anomalies and fake profiles that manipulate public opinion. Second, technologies that inherently provide trust include blockchain and digital platforms (e.g., Uber, Airbnb, Etsy), which create transparent, verifiable environments through rating systems and immutable transaction records. Lastly, technologies to prevent cybercrime focus on protecting digital identities and assets through approaches like Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), which enforces strict verification protocols. Microsoft’s comprehensive security solutions exemplify this strategy, integrating security, compliance, and identity management to safeguard data and devices across diverse platforms.
Trust in the digital world can be strengthened with technologies that ensure the authenticity of data, third parties and transactions with them
Trust in public and private institutions is in a moment of crisis and there are many entities that study this problem and its possible solutions. Trust in public and private institutions is in a moment of crisis and there are many entities that study this problem and its possible solutions. Proof of the importance it has at the moment is that the Davos 2021 Agenda of the World Economic Forum focuses on the theme: “Crucial year to rebuild trust”, at the Bankinter Innovation Foundation we did it at the end of 2020, with the celebration of its think tank “Trust in the digital age”. The main levers to regain trust, according to the experts of the Future Trends Forum, are innovation, efficiency and ethics. And these three levers can and should be supported by technology as an enabling tool. User s distrust the veracity of the information we receive, that third parties are really who they say they are, and the security of our identity and privacy.To face these three problems, a series of technological solutions arise that we encompass under the term TrustTech (or Trust Technology). In a very synthesized way, we could say that these solutions seek to encode the reputation of data, institutions and individuals and networks, as we will see below.
1.- Technologies that prevent disinformation
Pollutant information can be classified according to three categories, according to the work of Mary Blankenship (2020): How Misinformation Spreads Through Twitter:
- Misinformation: Occurs when false information is shared with no intention of harm.
- Disinformation: occurs when false information is shared with the intent to harm..
- Malinformation: occurs when genuine information is shared with the intention of harming, for example, the famous leaks.
Disinformation is created and expanded using new technologies: from bots that act as users to artificial intelligence capable of detecting biases and trends that can be taken advantage of maliciously.
As it could not be otherwise, the way to detect and combat it is also using technology as a strategic tool.
For example, Graphika uses a patented technology to map, visualize and measure social networks as a network of actors, making it possible to detect anomalies and strange behaviors.
This same company detects online and on the fly large-scale strategic influence campaigns, analyzing the anomalies of the network and identifying pieces of information that spread presenting a high degree of social contagion and virality.
On the other hand, using the Artificial Intelligence of deep analysis, applied to the relationships between the different nodes of the network, a very detailed segmentation is obtained based on what people do (“profiles”), and not only on what they say. Thus, fake profiles can be detected that are launching false messages with the intention of manipulating.
2.- Technologies that provide per se trust
These type of technologies are committed to to provide confidence to their users by the design of the solutions themselves. We include here digital platforms and the increasingly numerous solutions Blockchain or DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology), which offer transparency and inviolability of data and transactions.
The platforms allow us to travel by Uber to staying in a Airbnb; buy or sell handmade products in Etsy unce hiring someone or offering our professional services at Freelancer. It is these platforms that assure us of confidence in services and products, by intermediating between supply and demand and allowing s rating systems between users and suppliers. These types of platforms turn concepts such as credibility, influence and status into measurable and quantifiable elements.
3.- Technologies to prevent cybercrime
Finally, and to attack one of the biggest trust problems in the digital world – to be supplanted and stolen from us – there are a number of technological solutions to protect our digital identity, our equipment and digital networks in general. In this area, the solutions of zero trust (ZTA (Zero Trust Architecture)), whose principle is do not trust anyone by default and require strict verification of each person or device before granting access.
An example of such solutions is the proposed by Microsoft, whose focus is to address security, compliance, identity and device management as an interdependent whole and extend protection to all data, devices, identities, platforms and clouds, whether from Microsoft or not.