Introduction to assessing trust and trustworthiness

Performing an assessment of trust and trustworthiness is often the first step toward building or demonstrating trust and trustworthiness.

Assessing trustworthiness involves identifying and documenting the various steps an organisation is taking to be a trustworthy steward of data. Assessing trust, on the other hand, involves assessing the degree to which external organisations actually place their trust in that steward of data – that is, how far a steward of data is trusted by the people or organisations with whom it interacts.

Both activities are important and can be useful for organisations at different times depending on their trust-related challenges and needs. When an organisation is about to launch a new service, for instance, it might want to assess the trustworthiness of its data practices and document the results internally to provide peace of mind and confidence that it is doing everything possible to be a trustworthy steward of data. Later on, once that service is up and running, that same organisation might want to assess the degree to which it is trusted by its partners and customers.

Reasons to assess trustworthiness

• To provide peace of mind and confidence that you are doing everything possible to be trustworthy and protect your reputation.

• To foster intra-organisational awareness of how different departments perceive trust and trustworthiness, and the steps each is taking to be trustworthy and trusted.

• To identify where and how to build and improve your trustworthiness, whether as an organisation as a whole or to meet the needs and expectations of a specific stakeholder or partner. This is often key to creating new relationships, strengthening existing relationships or increasing the degree to which you are trusted by existing stakeholders or partners.

• To gauge whether an external organisation is trustworthy and can be trusted within a new relationship.

Reasons to assess trust

• To gauge the degree to which your organisation, your data practices and/or the data you are collecting, managing, using and sharing are trusted by other organisations, and whether the steps you are taking to be trustworthy are working.

• To prevent potential crises or losses of trust by identifying whether there are areas of misalignment between what your organisation is doing and what your partners, stakeholders or customers expect.

• To feel more confident in interacting with external organisations by identifying whether they have a reputation as a trustworthy steward of data.

This section presents guidance, tools and resources to help organisations assess their trust and trustworthiness – whether that means assessing their organisation, their data practices or the data they collect, manage, use or share.