Who this guidebook is for

This guidebook is intended for people and organisations looking to be both trustworthy and trusted when collecting, managing, using and sharing data; and for those looking for ways of demonstrating that trustworthiness to others in order to forge new relationships or bolster existing ones.

For instance:

• CEOs of startups aiming to demonstrate the trustworthiness of their new service or product.

• Data practitioners in organisations who wish to do something new with data and want to ensure they are being as trustworthy as possible.

• Members of communications teams in organisations that are working to rebuild their trustworthiness and reputation after previous mismanagement.

• Data management professionals in large organisations aiming to cultivate intra-organisational awareness of the steps each department is taking to be trustworthy.

• Project leads in SMEs who need to build or improve their trustworthiness to forge a new partnership with an organisation that is currently uncertain whether they can be trusted.

• Members of sales teams wishing to communicate their organisation's trustworthiness to community members or potential customers.

In particular, we believe the guidance, tools and activities presented here will be useful in addressing three common trust-related needs.

Assessing internal trustworthiness

This guidebook will enable organisations to perform an internal assessment of their trustworthiness as a data steward, identify areas for improvement and communicate evidence of their trustworthiness to others.

Co-designing trust and trustworthiness

This guidebook will show organisations engaged in shared ventures – for example, partnerships, data access initiatives and data collaborations – how to engage with their partners to collaboratively design steps that each can take to be trustworthy, and meet each other’s needs and expectations around how data will be collected, managed, used and shared.

Facilitating collaboration and building consensus

This guidebook will provide members of a community or ecosystem with tools to work collaboratively to become more trustworthy and trusted – for example, as part of a sector- or industry-wide initiative.

The guidance, tools and activities are primarily useful in helping organisations assess their own trust and trustworthiness as a steward of data. People and organisations interested in assessing the trustworthiness of other organisations will nonetheless find the guidance, tools and activities provided within this guidebook helpful. Many of the activities and tools can be repurposed to examine the trustworthiness of external organisations, especially when serving as the basis of desk research, interviews or surveys. The catalogue of trust-related resources also contains tools and resources that are relevant to assessing the trustworthiness of external organisations.

This guidebook is primarily focused on trust and trustworthiness as it relates to data and data stewardship (collecting, managing, using and sharing data). As a general rule, when we write about the trustworthiness of an organisation, we mean the trustworthiness of the organisation as a whole, its data practices and any data it collects, manages, uses and shares.