ISOC UK have submitted a note to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee which has been published on developing the issue of Trust in relation to framing legislation.
Today, policymakers must choose which path to take in developing Internet policies. One path leads to an open and trusted Internet with the social and economic benefits it brings. The other path leads to an untrusted and increasingly closed off network that fails to drive growth. One path leads to opportunity, the other to stagnation. The key is trust.
The starting point is to contextualise the meaning of trust in any given policy to the four dimensions of trust in networks.
User trust: How and why Internet users – including government, private sector and citizens – trust the Internet.
Technologies for trust: Technical building blocks establishing and maintaining trusted networks, applications and services.
Trusted networks: The Internet’s strength is that it is an ever – evolving collection of interconnected networks with distributed ownership and control. Trust keeps the networks connected and exchanging data.
Trustworthy ecosystem: How the Internet is governed and how it deals with Internet issues.
Recent policies for Child Safety and forthcoming issues over the Internet of Things are examples where policy focus on one dimension has consequences across all four trust dimensions risking unstable law and unintended consequences.
We wish to stimulate a process for ensuring that future policies legislating trust issues related to Internet in one dimension formally consider the balancing factors across all four dimensions of Trust.
Christian de Larrinaga
Dr. Ansgar Koene
Dr. Olivier Crepin-Leblond
Desiree Miloshevic