"Why is There a Data Trust Deficit?"
The global Technology Policy Council (TPC) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has released a TechBrief titled "The Data Trust Deficit." The central theme of the TechBrief is that the full potential of data-driven systems cannot be realized without a deeper understanding of the causes of the mistrust they can generate. Professor Helen Kennedy of the University of Sheffield and the main author of the new TechBrief emphasizes that it is becoming increasingly difficult to participate in society without using data-collecting systems. Although people use these systems daily, they do not necessarily trust them. The computing field must ensure that data systems are created from the ground up to be trustworthy. The first step in developing trustworthy systems is understanding why individuals have these doubts. Importantly, the ACM TechBrief dispels the common misconception that the public's lack of trust in data systems is due to their lack of data literacy. According to this view, trust would increase if people knew more about data systems or if companies and organizations were more transparent. However, the TechBrief notes that greater literacy often increases distrust. It also cites studies demonstrating that trust in data systems varies by context and the institution handling data. For example, the public has a high level of trust when their data is handled by a medical organization, but a much lower level of trust when a social media company handles their data. This article continues to discuss the ACM TechbBrief that examines public attitudes toward the safety of their data.