Introduction – The Importance of Digital Trust.
As we move towards a digital world, trust has become more important than ever. Without it, how can consumers feel confident enough to make purchases and complete transactions online? How can businesses make fully remote workplaces “safe” for their employees and contractors? If you can’t physically see the person on the other end of the interaction, how do you know who you’re really dealing with?
Luckily, we now have tools like electronic identification (eID) to help provide some level of digital trust and
make the online environment safer. In the EU, an eID allows citizens to access online benefits or services
provided by government authorities, banks or other companies, as well as make mobile payments. And
beyond online authentication and login, there has been a push to develop guidelines and governance around
electronic signatures.
But let’s take a step back and look at how we’ve arrived at this point. The gravity of the trust issue came to the attention of policy makers and economists more than a decade ago. In a 2011 study, the EU found a lack
of trust between merchant and purchaser to be one of the key factors inhibiting the success of eCommerce. Many steps were taken to overcome this issue, including the establishment of a unit called “eGovernment and Trust” and the subsequent launch of the regulation for Electronic
Identification, Authentication, and Trust Services. eIDAS officially took effect in July of 2016. Did it really help in resolving the issues with digital trust?
Before we get further into our exploration of eIDAS it’s important to note that we haven’t forgotten about the large parts of the world where eIDAS isn’t applicable. There have been many other trust guidelines established across the globe, applicable to specific industries and countries. One example is the establishment of the CA/Browser Forum for public CAs – including GlobalSign – which governs the issuance of publicly trusted SSL/TLS certificates. Another example for regulation, but only applicable to a certain country rather than a global industry, would be the Japanese Certification Authority Network (JCAN), maintaining a list of reliable trust services in Japan. It’s clear that the adoption of eIDAS
has already caused ripples in the global network of trust
schemes, and we’ll have to stay tuned to see how it plays
out as we head into the next decade.

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