Trust Index Outputs
The assessment design is rooted in privacy and data protection legislation, combined with good customer management practice and an awareness of the upsides and downsides to the use of technology in relation to personal information.
The Trust Index assessment generates a score for each organisation in total, and then across each of the 12 trust components.
An example is shown below.
The overall score (%) an organisation attains in the Trust Index assessment is a good high level indication of the extent to which it can be trusted to gather, manage and use personal data in ways that most individuals would be comfortable with. The overall score is a combination of scores from the 12 individual components. Individuals wishing to more fully understand the specific practices of the organisation they deal with/ are considering dealing with should note the overall score, but also review the 12 specific component scores.
Organisations scoring 75% or above in each individual practice area are regarded as acceptable or good on that specific dimension.
Organisations scoring 50-74% in an individual practice area should seek to make significant improvements in the area in question in order to improve their trustworthiness on that specific dimension.
Organisations scoring less than 50% in an individual practice area are regarded as showing significant weakness that run the risk of exposing personal data to risks that would be un-acceptable to most individuals.
Where weakness is found, recommendations for improvement are made in a written report to the organisation.
A copy of the overall score and the component parts for each assessed organisation is stored in the Trust Index benchmark database. This database will be used to report on overall trends, and ultimately to produce a directory of organisations and the extent to which individuals might trust them to gather, manage and use their personal data.
The overall objective of The Trust Index is to improve organisational behaviour around gathering, managing and using personal data; it will do so through education of all interested parties, and by bringing transparency to the subject area.