Data trusts as a strategy for sharing digital information
From a business standpoint, data trusts can open the door to a number of advantages, including fewer data silos, more control, access to reliable, audited information, and enhanced brand reputation due to honest, open data collection and use.
From an IT standpoint, data trusts can increase digital trust by validating a lone source of reliable information, simplifying and enhancing data management and sharing. Additionally, businesses can use intermediaries to avoid data bloat, access only the data and insights they need, and add an extra layer of privacy and protection while lowering their risk of data loss, breaches, bad management, or fraud. Data trusts are also becoming a viable option for organising and distributing massive amounts of sensor and IoT (the Internet of Things) data.
Although a crucial model for preserving digital trust, data trusts have drawbacks. Distributed cloud systems make it easier to share data, but if they are not properly governed, they can also cause problems with data sovereignty and compliance. For business continuity and disaster recovery purposes, data stored in one country might be replicated to a data centre located in another country. If proper governance and control measures are not put in place, however, this could lead to problems with local data standards and privacy laws. Additionally, data trusts aggregate high-value data, making it a target for cyberattacks despite being physically distributed. To help with this problem, a federated cloud security model can be taken into consideration.
To build a layered security model that helps to abstract and better protect data as it is being consumed, businesses can use a cloud-data fabric, which is data that has been seamlessly stitched together across various sources and infrastructures. With these precautions in mind, data trusts are a practical model that businesses from various sectors can use to increase digital trust.
Blockchain and data ownership
Blockchain, sometimes referred to as a “trust-less solution,” offers a way to establish trust in specific people, groups, and contractual terms through the use of an independently verifiable, unchangeable, and reliable database or ledger. Because businesses now trust technology, they may not need as many reliable third parties.
Blockchain can support keeping a reliable record of transactions. Stakeholders can easily verify the authenticity and integrity of data by tracking data and its fingerprint, which increases transparency. The adoption of blockchain-based systems that can track goods and associated data throughout intricate global supply chains is gradually rising.
Trusted identities can be helped by blockchain. Any digital relationship or transaction must include this as a crucial element. Blockchain permits decentralised, tamper-proof self-sovereign identities and allows for the verification of credentials without disclosing the information underlying those identities.
Blockchain can prove who owns an asset. A widely used use case at the moment is digital assets, particularly cryptocurrencies. Finally, blockchain can automate trust and enable quicker legal agreements. Without a middleman or escrow, parties can negotiate terms and complete transactions with the confidence that they will be carried out automatically with little chance of fraud or manipulation thanks to blockchain-based smart contracts.
Quantum technologies
Digital trust is likely to be impacted by quantum technologies in three different ways. First, the enormous computing power promised by quantum computers can be used to conduct extensive analytics on cyber and privacy data to find anomalous or suspicious behaviour. Second, enhanced components for cyber systems, such as the creation and distribution of cryptographic keys, may be provided by the physical characteristics of quantum technologies. Third, when quantum computing is fully developed, it might be able to implement Shor’s algorithm, making some popular encryption methods simple to break and increasing the vulnerability of data and transactions to attackers. The use of encryption methods that are “quantum-resistant,” also known as postquantum cryptography (PQC), is likely to be one of the key capabilities that will be needed to maintain digital trust in a postquantum world.
PQC uses challenging mathematical problems that are thought to be impractical for quantum computers to solve and runs on conventional computers. PQC is anticipated to be compatible with existing networks and communication protocols, increasing its cost-effectiveness and simplifying its maintenance. This increased understanding of cryptographic reliance might assist to increase digital trust.
Although there isn’t a single answer to the mystery of digital trust, technologies like blockchain, quantum computing, and AI-based monitoring can all be advantageous. Digital trust requires business leaders to be involved in technology investments both now and in the future because of the growing business impacts. To incorporate innovation opportunities into their web of digital trust, leaders must be proactive, alert to them, and make the appropriate investments. To maintain and advance digital trust today and in the future, this should be an ongoing activity.