Digital trust, the challenge of the century
Scientific research, bank, blockchain, academic world… On the occasion of its event at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne on 19 September 2019, the Clusis convened four experts to discuss issues related to digital confidence.
First of all, it’s an admission of a problem. Faced with ever more curious applications, with the multiplication of data theft scandals, and with the growing robolution of society, can we – as individuals – trust the companies and services to which we delegate a growing part of our daily lives as connected men and women? It is then the observation of a paradox: how to accompany this inevitable technological evolution, at the same time protector of the private sphere of citizens and guarantor of democracy, in the face of tools that are ever more greedy for personal data in order to offer us efficient services? Far from the naivety of the Internet’s beginnings, digital trust is the crucial issue of this century.
There is no growth without confidence and there is no confidence without growth, hammered François Hollande at the G8 summit in Camp David in 2012. The former French President thus reinterated a principle as old as the world on which our exchanges are based. Any transaction between two people is based on a notion of trust. It is the source of wealth creation. With the digitisation of society, this “Economy of Trust” is back in the spotlight. This evolution is changing the way we consume, share, work and exchange. It is therefore not just a digital wave, but a new world in which the economy, politics and civil society are looking for their benchmarks. At the heart of this quest is trust.
In Switzerland, the current debates on the creation of a digital identity (e-ID) illustrate the colossal work in progress.As a reminder, the e-ID aims at a single identification procedure for a large number of online services, instead of the current multiple passwords. In the physical world, this identity is placed under the responsibility of the State. What about the digital world? Many private actors are rushing to the door. This is the case with the SwissSign project, which brings together SBB, Swiss Post, Swisscom, insurers and banks. This consortium proposes a pragmatic technical solution, but without a specific legal framework.
It also raises many questions: can citizens trust companies whose business model is partly based on the data economy? On the other hand, if the State must have overall responsibility, but cannot go it alone. The solution may be nested in the blockchain, this technology comparable to a digital, decentralized, shared and forgery-proof register.Guardtime, a digital security company born in 2007 in Tallinn, has built Estonia’s entire e-government strategy.Guardtime’s goal was to create a technology that could satisfy the need for trust. And answer questions such as: how do I know if this state document is authentic or if this health form is correct?
Guardtime cryptographers invented the blockchain KSI, the encryption technology successfully deployed for the Estonian government. Today, Estonia is the only country to offer fully digitised government services that require no physical interaction. Guardtime has just moved its headquarters to Prilly (VD) where it has just sealed a strategic partnership with Sicpa in e-government solutions. Softcom has just submitted project requests to deploy Guardtime solutions in 2020 in a first Swiss canton.
Other Swiss actors advocate the creation of a virtuous circle so that Switzerland can assess the risks and opportunities of technologies in a dematerialized participatory society. This digital responsibility concerns the State, companies, citizens, public policies. This is how we will be able to build an enlightened and transparent digital society.The debate is open.
