Trust Tech : Technologies to increase trust in digital era

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.