Examining trustless trust from privacy-enhancing technologies for inter-organisational data sharing

Lead DIGIT Lab Academics: Prof. Leroy White and Dr. Kat Burger (DIGIT Lab collaborator)

There has been an argument suggesting that advanced digital technologies like blockchain are reducing the need for trust in what they do. However, recent scholarship has primarily focused on defining this in terms of the concept of ‘trustless trust’, resulting in less attention being given to the ambivalence in trusting these emerging technologies in a specific task. In order to examine this gap, this project examines the role of new emerging privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) in enabling ‘trustless trust’. Adopting a multiple case study, we examine the consequences of adopting specific organisational solutions. We aim to reflect on the implications of our findings and what they reveal about the effects of trustless trust technologies.