Swiss Digital Initiative with new expert committee

The Swiss Digital Initiative launched the Digital Trust Label in January 2022. The label shows the trustworthiness of a digital application such as a website or an app in a simple and non-technical language. Digital applications are tested against 35 criteria in four dimensions: Security of the digital service, privacy of the digital service, reliability of the digital service, and fair interaction with users, which includes notification of the use of automated decision-making processes.

The criteria catalog was created by the first Label Expert Committee (LEC) under the leadership of EPFL and further developed based on feedback from several public consultations. The developed criteria serve as a basis for an independent review.

Expertise and interdisciplinary cooperation 

The mandate of the first Label Expert Committee ended with the finalization of the first version of the Digital Trust Label criteria catalog. As digital technologies are advancing rapidly, the continuous development of the Digital Trust Label is a priority for SDI. The experts meet regularly, gather feedback throughout the year, and develop recommendations for possible adjustments to the label.

New Expert:inside Committee

Through an open application process, SDI received a high number of high-quality applications and is proud to include the following representatives from civil society and consumer protection, public sector and international organizations, academia, and the private sector, as well as experts with proven know-how and expertise in the four dimensions of the Digital Trust Label on the Expert Committee:

• Marcel Blattner, Principal Data Scientist and Team Leader, ETH Swiss Data Science Center
• Nikki Böhler, Director, Opendata.ch
• Sophia Ding, Managing Consultant, Head Trustworthy AI & Responsible Tech, AWK Group
• Maximilian Groth, Co-Founder & CEO, Decentriq
• Michael Kende, Senior Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at the Geneva Graduate Institute, and Senior Advisor at Analysys Mason.
• Rodolphe Koller, Editor-in-Chief, ICTjournal
• Diego Kuonen, CEO, Statoo Consulting & Professor of Data Science, GSEM, University of Geneva
• Patrick Schaller, Senior Scientist System Security, ETHZ
• Mitchell Scherr, CEO, Assured Cyber Protection
• Manouchehr Shamsrizi, Co-Founder, gamelab.berlin Humboldt University's Cluster of Excellence and Co-Founder RetroBrain R&D
• Martin Steiger, Partner Steiger Legal, Co-Founder Data Protection Partner
• Tuulia Timonen, Head PSC Service Excellence, Posti Group
• Leila Toplic, Head Emerging Technologies Initiative, NetHope
• Charlotte van Ooijen, Associate Director Digital Government and Data, The Lisbon Council for Economic Competitiveness and Social Renewal

Niniane Paeffgen, Executive Director of SDI: "We are delighted to be able to count on the expertise of such a highly qualified and interdisciplinary committee and we are convinced that these perspectives will be valuable for the further development of the Digital Trust Label. Digital trust cannot be defined by one organization alone, but requires the collaboration of all stakeholders."

Authenticity guarantee with SICPA

To further strengthen the credibility of the label and make it forgery-proof, SDI is proud to announce a partnership with SICPA, a leading Swiss provider of secure authentication, identification and traceability solutions that secure transactions, interactions and products in the physical and digital world. SICPA's blockchain-based and cost-effective digital solution verifies the dynamic content of paper-based and digital documents by applying a tamper-proof QR mark.

The Digital Trust Label will be tagged with a corresponding QR identifier, making it instantly verifiable with general verification tools such as web and mobile apps from the third quarter of 2022. Philippe Thevoz, Vice President of eGovernment at SICPA: "We are proud to partner with the Swiss Digital Initiative to make the world's first Digital Trust Label tamper-proof with our digital solution Certus. In an ever-evolving digital landscape, customers and users of digital services can be assured not only of the trustworthiness of the website or service they are using, but also of the current validity of the Digital Trust Label."

The Swiss Digital Initiative (SDI) is an independent, non-profit foundation based in Geneva, founded in 2020 by digitalswitzerland and under the patronage of Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer. SDI pursues concrete projects with the aim of securing ethical standards and promoting responsible conduct in the digital world. It brings together science, politics, civil society and business to find solutions that strengthen trust in digital technologies and in the agents of digital transformation.

SICPA is the market leader in security inks and a leading provider of secure authentication, identification, traceability and supply chain solutions, and is a long-time trusted partner to governments, central banks, high-security printers and industry. Every day, governments, businesses and millions of citizens rely on SICPA's expertise combining material-based covert features and digital technologies to protect the integrity and value of their currency, personal identity, documents of value, e-government services, and products and brands. True to its mission of enabling trust through continuous innovation, SICPA aims to promote an economy of trust worldwide, where transactions, interactions and products in the physical and digital worlds are based on protected, tamper-proof and verifiable data. Founded in Lausanne in 1927, SICPA is headquartered in Switzerland and operates on five continents, employing approximately 3,000 people.