Digital Trust Label

The Digital Trust Label

The Swiss Digital Initiative and its partners have developed the first Digital Trust Label that denotes the trustworthiness of a digital service in clear, visual and plain, non-technical language for everyone to understand. With the Label, consumers can be assured of the trustworthiness of the digital service they consume.

The Digital Trust Label acts as a combination of a bio Label and nutrition fact table for the digital world. The Label shows that mandatory criteria are fulfilled by a digital service, while at the same time giving users more information and transparency about four dimensions of the digital service:

Need for a Digital Trust Label

Whether in our personal or professional life, we look for trust to feel at ease and engage with others easily. The same applies to the digital world. Growing complexity and opaqueness, coupled with various scandals around data breaches and discrimination by algorithmic systems, are fueling mistrust in digital services. Now is the time to establish digital trust and harness the beneficial potential of digital technologies for our societies.

The Label Development

Digital Trust cannot be defined by one actor alone, but can only be the result of the close collaboration of all relevant actors: academia, civil society, consumer protection, the private and public sector. This is why the SDI involved all relevant stakeholders in the development and made the criteria and development process as transparent as possible.

The Label is understood as an ongoing and collaborative effort to strengthen trust in a digital service through increased understanding and transparency. While other organizations around the globe are pursuing similar initiatives, SDI and its Digital Trust Label are the most developed initiative from 50+ similar initiatives worldwide as a study revealed.

The Label development is an iterative process, hence, it will be continuously developed. In 2021, a first Label will be released focussing on whether a digital service meets our mandatory criteria or not. In 2022 this will be expanded to also show details for the four dimensions.

Partnerships and Co-Creation

The Label Expert Committee (LEC)

Our Label Expert Committee (LEC) is dedicated to working on the label catalogue criteria and formulates label recommendations to the SDI Board.

The LEC consists on average of 10 experts from academia, economy, data and consumer protection, legal, human rights and digital ethics to represent a diverse and inclusive expert view.

The LEC’s work is coordinated by the EPFL Center for Digital Trust (C4DT).

List of Members of the LEC - Status June 2021