Trust in the digital world

Trustnet

Can there even be trust in the digital world?

In a digital world full of fake news, cybercrime and data breaches, the question arises: Can we still trust the internet?
Man using his phone in a cafe, whilst being surrounded by a blue digital protection shield

Fake news, fake shops, fake products, fake profiles, Trojans, viruses, phishing mails, unauthorized storage and disclosure of personal data, data theft, hacker attacks and espionage - in view of the huge potential for fraud and damage that is facilitated by anonymity and pseudonymity on the Internet, the question arises: Is it possible to have any trust at all in digital information or digital interactions? How far can I trust a nice but complete stranger in a chat room? Can I simply trust a completely unknown Chinese company that suddenly wants to do business with me? Does this email really come from my bank? Are the artificial intelligences of Facebook, Google, Apple, Samsung or BlackRock working for me or against me with the data I give them every day via my smartphone/tablet? Am I the customer or am I the product? The design goal for the World Wide Web was the simple exchange of information. The general verifiability of information was not part of the concept. Subsequently a veritable proliferation of procedures emerged to make actors identifiable and information verifiable, but the resulting multitude of isolated solutions cannot solve the fundamental problem of trust in the digital space. It is time to change the DNA of the World Wide Web in order to finally meet users' need for trust and legal security in digital interactions.

What is missing?

Despite the existing toolbox of digital trust building, there are only very limited areas of trust and legal certainty on the internet. These limited areas usually involve organizational anchors of trust in the real world and use them to establish the digital chain of trust, such as in the KYC process of banks, which requires personal appearance and the presentation of an ID card or a video ID procedure. However, this is far too time-consuming for most digital interactions. Trust on the Internet requires the transparency of the relevant identity characteristics of the actors involved. So what's missing?

Identification

Secure digital identities and proofs for sovereign actors, legal entities (organizations), natural persons and objects that go beyond mapping the basic identity characteristics (e.g. ID card data) and also make it possible to map and verify other identity characteristics, rights and relationships to other natural persons, legal entities and objects

Digital ID Ecosystem

A digital ID ecosystem with trust services, certification bodies, advisory bodies and sanctioning mechanisms

Organisational Framework

An organizational framework with a set of rules, trust-building data infrastructure and governance (administration) as well as labels for compliance

Legal Framework

The legal framework, which not only regulates the handling of sovereign means of identification, but also, for example, makes the handling of digital IDs and proofs in all specialist applications legally secure

Only then will verification-based trust mechanisms become digitizable and widely applicable. All of this requires a further development of the Internet in which not only the state, but all service providers, users and stakeholders who require trust in digital interactions must actively participate. We call it Trustnet. In the Trustnet, trust is not primarily created through IT security, but through the automatic verifiability of information.

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