About the DTF

The Digital Trust Forum (DTF) is a global, open and independent initiative with a focus on enabling trusted digital solutions for connected, intelligent, physical products, utilizing AI and the Internet of Things (collectively referred to as AIoT in this context). DTF is inspired by the EU initiatives on AI and trust.

The inaugural DTF was held in May 2019 in Berlin, hosted by Bosch group-CDO Michael Bolle and EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel. Participating organizations included BDI, DIGITALEUROPE, Eclipse Foundation, Enisa, ETSI, IEEE, Industrial Internet Consortium, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42, Platform Industrie 4.0 and Trusted IoT Alliance.

The DTF work mode is currently as follows:
  • A large, annual member meeting brings together all DTF participants to review the progress made and agree on the roadmap for the next year
  • Individual Work Groups are collaborating to drive forward different topics, e.g. the DTF reference architecture, or trust policy definitions in different verticals 
  • Customer-driven pilot projects are implemented as co-innovation challenges or individual testbeds

Motivation

Technology is evolving at – sometimes breathtakingly – high speed. Especially the rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), and their massive utilization (AIoT), are causing not only enthusiastic responses, but also many concerns. These concerns are not only related to security and data privacy, but sometimes relate to dystopic visions of failing civil infrastructure, criminally abused IT systems, or even out-of-control autonomous systems. In order to ensure that the many opportunities presented by these new technologies continue to find high level of customer acceptance, trust between all related stakeholders have to be established. A trustworthy behavior of technical systems and all related stakeholders which meets end-users’ expectations must be ensured on many levels. 
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The Digital Trust Forum is bringing together representatives from the relevant stakeholder groups in order to help ensure that end-users develop an ongoing high level of trust in AI and IoT-based solutions. Only within such a trustworthy environment will new solutions be able to continue to attract new customers and users. DTF will help its partners and supporters to take a proactive role in setting and managing expectations regarding trust in such digital solutions by making trust policies explicit and transparent, and building the required trust management mechanism directly into digital solutions.