Measuring Digital Trust: Supporting Decision-Making for Trustworthy Technologies

The World Economic Forum (WEF) defines digital trust as the expectation that digital technologies and the organizations providing them protect stakeholder interests and uphold societal values. To support this, the report introduces a measurement framework divided into two categories: subjective, retrospective measures of progress toward goals (such as security, reliability, and ethical use) based on external perceptions and behavior, and objective, prospective measures of maturity across eight governance dimensions: cybersecurity, safety, transparency, interoperability, auditability, redressability, fairness, and privacy. These measures are intended to inform decision-making, investment allocation, and the potential development of future certification or benchmarking models.

• The report distinguishes between measuring progress toward digital trust goals and measuring the maturity of digital trust dimensions. Progress measures are "subjective, retrospective and based on external perceptions and behaviour", focusing on the resilience of the relationship between an organization and an actor. In contrast, maturity measures are "objective and prospective", evaluating the internal governance, objectives, and capabilities of an organization's digital trust programme.
• To measure progress toward digital trust goals, the report suggests using perception measures—such as satisfaction, confidence, loyalty, and "comprehension of data flow"—and behavioral measures, including adoption, engagement, retention, and promotion.
• The maturity of the cybersecurity dimension is measured by its ability to address two primary objectives: incident prevention (e.g., account, network, and software security) and incident response (e.g., detection, recovery, and forensics).
• Safety maturity is evaluated based on efforts to prevent emotional, physical, or psychological harm. Preventative capabilities include safety training, threat modelling, and new product assessments, while response capabilities focus on incident response planning and corrective actions to ensure harmed parties are "made whole".
• Transparency maturity requires moving beyond regulatory requirements to a proactive approach. This involves "appropriate disclosure" (deciding what to disclose and to whom) and "informative disclosure" (translating content for audiences and allowing for feedback).
• Interoperability is measured through technical interoperability, such as data portability and platform connectivity, and community engagement, which includes the use of open-source code and participation in standard-setting.
• Auditability maturity is assessed by the effectiveness of the audit process (planning and scoping high-risk areas) and the effectiveness of remediation (accountability structures and monitoring to minimize repeat findings).
• Redressability focuses on the ability of affected parties to obtain recourse. Maturity is measured by the provision of user-friendly support (e.g., self-service and escalation paths) and the incorporation of user feedback into product design and regular improvements.
• Fairness maturity involves both procedural fairness (periodic reviews and documentation of decisions) and outcome fairness, which includes bias assessments of datasets or models and evaluations of features prior to deployment.
• Privacy maturity is measured by user functionality, such as engaging consent processes and optionality in settings, and organizational functionality, including privacy by design assessments and privacy impact assessments.

APA

World Economic Forum (2023). Measuring Digital Trust: Supporting Decision-Making for Trustworthy Technologies. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Measuring_Digital_Trust_2023.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Measuring Digital Trust: Supporting Decision-Making for Trustworthy Technologies. 2023. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Measuring_Digital_Trust_2023.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Measuring Digital Trust: Supporting Decision-Making for Trustworthy Technologies |date=October 2023 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Measuring_Digital_Trust_2023.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2023measuring, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Measuring Digital Trust: Supporting Decision-Making for Trustworthy Technologies}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2023}, month = oct, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Measuring_Digital_Trust_2023.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }