Digital trust can be improved, not fully restored, say experts

Trust, which has been compromised, because of the challenges in the World Wide Web, is not totally lost.

- Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

K & L Gates LLP Partner lawyer Guillermo Christensen, US Consul General in Dubai and the Northern Emirates Robert Raines and META-GCC Policy Manager Mariam Obaid Al Mheiri discussed this with Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy Associate Professor Rikard Jalkebro by way of the “Governing Digital Trust - Diplomacy Public Policy and Cyber-Security in a Connected World.”

“The importance of these kinds of engagement, these open and inclusive conversations about cyber-security is absolutely essential on one and several ways because on the fundamental level, cyberspace and cyber-security are shared,” Raines told Gulf Today, ahead of the panel discussion.

Interviewed, Christensen, 20 years in government, former Central Intelligence Agency officer and diplomat, said: “It was in the early days when we already knew that we could use the Internet for all kinds of bad things because it was not designed to be secure. The Internet was designed to be open. There was nothing built into it to ensure that you are who you are. It is easy to impersonate someone. That is the source of a lot of problems.”

He was asked on what he had detailed at the panel, concerning the Internet, credibility and the eroded digital trust.