How to build trust in new tech

Since coro­n­avirus struck, trust in the tech­no­log­i­cal plat­forms and ser­vices, which under­pin essen­tial process­es, has been cru­cial to keep the world mov­ing. 

Employ­ees work­ing from home need to trust they will not reveal sen­si­tive com­pa­ny infor­ma­tion through access­ing servers remote­ly. Peo­ple buy­ing gro­ceries for shield­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers have to make sure their sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion is not at risk of becom­ing pub­lic with­out their knowl­edge. 

Before COVID-19, the dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty sec­tor was grow­ing. Now the role of con­sumer trust in speed­ing up adop­tion of dig­i­tal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies is more impor­tant than ever.

Rachel Bots­man, the world’s first trust fel­low at Oxford University’s Saïd Busi­ness School and an expert on the rela­tion­ship between trust and tech­nolo­gies, says the role of trust is vital when devel­op­ing any tech­nol­o­gy, not just dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty tech­nolo­gies.

“If you don’t have faith or con­fi­dence in a sys­tem, then you’re just not going to use that prod­uct or those ser­vices,” she says. “We can define trust as a con­fi­dent rela­tion­ship with the unknown, so if we’re accept­ing that pres­ence of dig­i­tal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies with­in our lives, it will often require accept­ing we might not know many of the tech­ni­cal details about the sys­tems used. But this is ask­ing a lot for some­thing that may not actu­al­ly be very famil­iar to us.” 

In 2019, British Air­ways was fined £183 mil­lion for a data breach when more than 500,000 cus­tomers had their details har­vest­ed by hack­ers. But the air­line didn’t dis­close the full num­ber of trans­ac­tions that had been affect­ed or the amount of infor­ma­tion which had been released. In Novem­ber 2018, Uber dis­closed it had been attacked by hack­ers in Novem­ber 2016 and was hand­ed a £400,000 fine. These events can leave what Bots­man calls “trust scars”. 

She explains: “Con­cerns about pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty have real­ly grown in the last few decades, but con­text is king here. We may have more trust in dig­i­tal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies around bank­ing because we’ve been involved in authen­ti­ca­tion in that sec­tor for over a decade now.” 

But it could be a dif­fer­ent sto­ry when it comes to a rel­a­tive­ly con­tro­ver­sial or inti­mate field, such as the cre­ation of a dig­i­tal health iden­ti­ty. Peo­ple can’t be forced into com­fort with these tech­nolo­gies overnight. Com­pa­nies have to work to show con­sumers they’re not going to let them down.

One method for com­pa­nies look­ing to build up trust is to empha­sise their prod­uct or ser­vice isn’t whol­ly new and unfa­mil­iar. Vanes­sa Viala at Thales Group says com­pa­nies can build trust in new tech­nolo­gies by under­stand­ing that, while it can’t be rushed, it can def­i­nite­ly be helped along by tap­ping into the trust which exists between con­sumers and the tech they already use. Apple uses a ver­sion of this process in its prod­uct design through so-called skeuo­mor­phism or reduc­ing the unknown ele­ments of a new tech­nol­o­gy and draw­ing on what is famil­iar to engen­der a greater sense of trust. 

But com­pa­nies work­ing in dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty can do this too. Viala explains: “Take the mobile phone, for exam­ple. It has quick­ly become the per­son­al com­pan­ion for increas­ing­ly sen­si­tive ser­vices and, as a result, a key tool in build­ing trust. The more peo­ple trust their mobile device for pay­ments, tick­et­ing and mobile bank­ing, the bet­ter we can edu­cate the pub­lic on why dig­i­tal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies are trust­wor­thy. The key is to high­light why it’s secure for the end-user, as the con­ve­nient part is often obvi­ous.”

A sec­ond method is to iden­ti­fy trust influ­encers, peo­ple who can talk about prod­ucts and ser­vices in a way that inspires trust on an indi­vid­ual lev­el. In prac­tice, this can mean ask­ing experts in the field to give your prod­uct the stamp of approval, as is often the case with new forms of social media. 

A final trust-build­ing method is to make it clear to users what they stand to gain from these tech­nolo­gies. “You have to address what peo­ple are fright­ened of and so you have to empha­sise what peo­ple are giv­ing up, but also what they’re gain­ing,” says Bots­man. “You have to address the fact that how much trust is required is going to be depen­dent on that per­son and their famil­iar­i­ty with these tech­nolo­gies. One big mis­take often made in launch­ing new tech­nolo­gies is assum­ing every­one is in the same trust state.” 

A new gen­er­a­tion of dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty tech­nolo­gies, which are decen­tralised and could mean every indi­vid­ual holds their own ver­i­fi­able cre­den­tials, could also hold the key to trust in the sec­tor.

“Many people’s men­tal modes of how sys­tems work are root­ed in these expe­ri­ences, such as log­ging in with emails or OpenID,” says Kaliya Young, a researcher into dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty. “But decen­tralised iden­ti­ty tech­nolo­gies will also change these par­a­digms. They will pro­vide ways for indi­vid­u­als to prove infor­ma­tion about them­selves and so issue any per­son or enti­ty with the abil­i­ty to issue ver­i­fied cre­den­tials. This kind of tech­nol­o­gy would make you the host of your own login capa­bil­i­ties.”

Despite steady growth in the dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty sec­tor, a glob­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion gap, where basic neces­si­ties in many coun­tries, such as reg­is­ter­ing for a school or a job, or receiv­ing gov­ern­ment assis­tance, requires indi­vid­u­als to prove their iden­ti­ty, remains. Those cre­at­ing the tech­nolo­gies to solve this have a big job ahead and they must make build­ing trust in their inno­va­tions a pri­or­i­ty. 

The road to trust is nev­er straight­for­ward, par­tic­u­lar­ly in such a rapid­ly chang­ing sec­tor. “We shouldn’t under­es­ti­mate the pow­er of the word iden­ti­ty itself,” says Bots­man. “Par­tic­u­lar­ly when we’re talk­ing about dig­i­tal iden­ti­ties, even the word itself is evolv­ing.”