Introduction to demonstrating trust and trustworthiness

Assessing and building your trust and trustworthiness as a steward of data are important steps, but they are often not sufficient on their own. Organisations should also take steps to demonstrate their trustworthiness to others.

As with the ‘Assess’ and ‘Build’ sections, there is a difference between demonstrating trust and demonstrating trustworthiness. Demonstrating trustworthiness involves demonstrating all the various steps that you are taking as an organisation in order to be trustworthy as a steward of data. Depending on the needs and expectations of the partner or stakeholder you are demonstrating your trustworthiness to, this may involve stressing different facets of your organisation’s trustworthiness.

Demonstrating trust, on the other hand, involves demonstrating that you are trusted by other organisations. In many ways, demonstrating that you are trusted is a reputational activity. For instance, an organisation that is trying to demonstrate to a potential partner that it can be trusted might provide evidence of other organisations that trust it and can vouch for its reputation or history as a trustworthy steward of data. In some cases, this may be enough for a potential partner to feel comfortable placing its trust in that organisation. Both demonstrating trustworthiness and demonstrating trust are important, and an organisation will likely perform both at different times.