We've solved the problem of creating data. We haven't solved the problem of creating trust.
IDC estimates the world's datasphere will exceed 200 zettabytes in 2026. Organisations now have access to more information than at any point in history—far more than most can realistically govern.
Here's a simple example.
A document arrives in your inbox.
It travelled over an encrypted connection. TLS did its job. The sender authenticated with multi-factor authentication. Identity did its job. The network was monitored. The endpoint was protected. The attachment was scanned.
Every security control passed.
The document was still false.
None of those technologies were designed to answer the question that matters:
Can I rely on this information?
Security protects the communication channel. Identity proves who is participating. Neither establishes whether the information itself is true, current, authorised or fit for the purpose it's about to be used for.
So every organisation fills the gap itself. Someone checks the document. Someone phones the sender. Someone searches another database. Someone asks for another copy or more information.
Judgement becomes process.
The result is predictable. The same claim gets independently verified by every organisation that receives it. Five organisations. Five investigations. Five sets of evidence. Five separate trust decisions. None of them reusable.
For decades this was merely inefficient. Now it is becoming a structural limitation. The volume of information continues to grow while decisions need to be made faster. Organisations—and increasingly AI systems—cannot wait for trust to be reconstructed manually every time information crosses an organisational boundary.
The digital economy doesn't have a data problem.
It has a trust problem.
Perhaps it's time to treat trust as infrastructure rather than something every organisation builds for itself.
Trust precedes transaction.
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