Digital trust and sustainable design of circular services (DiTrust)

More and more in society is done through digital services. They are developed by organizations and businesses themselves, sometimes with formal expertise, sometimes as self-taught, or the services are purchased from IT companies. The public in turn uses the e-services of municipalities and public authorities or commercial sharing and value-added services. The DiTrust project aims to develop better knowledge in information security and design to meet new requirements, but also to create better conditions for companies to switch to circular processes.

The idea is based on the accepted concept of 'twin transition', that sustainable development and digitalization must go hand in hand for a green transition. In digitalisation, we see a 'twin transition' problem that concerns the information security, reliability and trust of internet-based value-added services, applications, platforms and other digital solutions that handle data and information from users. However, the sharing economy depends on digital services to make the circular economy work.

Ensuring that digital services work properly requires significant cybertechnological resources, but often lacks comprehensible communication to customers. When new innovative business ideas are developed, the focus is on designing, developing and introducing a digital service to be first to market. This means that information security is at worst missed completely, or at best, comes along when the service's features are already ready. In this project, we are focusing on increasing usability and confidentiality already when developing an application, something we call "security by design". In addition to developing more secure services, we will also develop policies that the system user understands. We want to contribute to increased digital trust.

The project will start in fall 2023 and run for three years. The studies will be carried out together with organizations, businesses and the public.