Trust is at the heart of every interaction – whether between colleagues, employers, or the organisations entrusted with personal data. In today’s digital economy, trust is not just a competitive advantage, it’s a business imperative.
Organisations must cultivate and sustain trust to thrive and innovate, yet the growing frequency of cyber-attacks and data breaches is eroding confidence at an alarming rate. As these incidents dominate headlines, businesses risk facing a full-blown trust crisis.
This article explores the current state of digital trust, the organisations leading the way, and the steps needed to rebuild confidence in an increasingly data-driven world.
The State of Digital Trust
Thales’ 2025 Digital Trust Index reveals a concerning reality: trust in organisations is declining across nearly every sector. Consumers are increasingly sceptical about how businesses handle their data, with nearly two-thirds believing the responsibility for protecting their personal information falls on them rather than the organisations collecting it.
Trust, however, should not feel like a forced trade-off. The data shows that over a third (37%) of consumers only share their personal information because it is required for access to services – rather than out of genuine trust – while just 34% believe companies will manage their data responsibly.
This imbalance threatens both customer relationships and innovation. Organisations must prioritise transparency, ethical data practices, and proactive security measures to restore trust, not as an obligation, but as a cornerstone of sustainable growth.
By ensuring data is shared openly and in good faith, businesses can turn trust from a liability into a driver of innovation and long-term success. It’s this approach that we see in the one sector that bucked the global trend for decline in trust this year.
The Outlier: Government Services
Government organisations emerged as the unexpected leader in this year’s Trust Index, recording the highest increase in trust levels. While banking remains the most trusted industry globally, government entities ranked highest in Singapore, India, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Australia.
This trend reflects the growing demand for digitised services and the transformative impact they have on government operations. To drive adoption, trust, transparency, and citizen consent must remain at the core of digital initiatives.
Countries with highly trusted government organisations are setting new benchmarks for digital excellence. India’s Digi Yatra initiative, for instance, leverages facial biometrics to streamline air travel, enhancing both security and convenience. Similarly, Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads launched a digital licence app, which surpassed 500,000 downloads in 7 months. Thales plays a crucial role in enabling these advancements through its biometric authentication, digital identity solutions, and secure credentialing technologies, helping governments build trusted, efficient, and future-ready digital services.
Thales is at the forefront of digital identity transformation, powering one in three secure civil IDs issued worldwide. Through its advanced Civil Identity Suite, Thales supports over 300 national identity programmes, ensuring governments can provide citizens with secure, reliable, and future-ready identity solutions. By integrating biometric authentication, AI-driven fraud detection, and post-quantum cryptography, Thales helps governments build trust in digital services while safeguarding sensitive data against evolving cyber threats.
The Journey to Building Trust
These success stories highlight two critical lessons for organisations seeking to strengthen trust:
- First, data privacy and storage: data must be given with consent and not stored centrally
- Second, transparency and communication: citizens should be involved in the process, with clear communication of benefits and a focus on their needs
Trust is not built overnight, but the journey towards greater transparency, security, and accountability can lay the foundation for continuous innovation and improved services across industries.
