Q&A with a project manager: How do our institutions and the trust they are built on evolve in a digital world?

After earning his doctorate in computer networks, Imad Aad, project manager at the Center for Digital Trust (C4DT) at EPFL, spent several years working on issues of digital privacy before taking up a role at the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner's office. Today, at C4DT, he works at the crossroads of technology, society and regulation, translating technical research into systems people can understand, and ultimately trust.

What do we mean when we talk about 'e-democracy?'

I would say this notion includes all the components of democracy that can be moved to the digital world—e-voting, e-ID, electronic collection of signatures. We can also add notions like misinformation and disinformation, because they directly influence trust in democratic tools.

Public trust is often cited as a major barrier in the implementation of new technologies…

Yes. As an example, we can look at what happened during the COVID pandemic. The contact-tracing app was technically excellent—decentralized, privacy-preserving, with no surveillance possible—and yet many people refused to use it. They didn't necessarily understand how it worked and feared being monitored.

We saw this again with the recent vote on e-ID (narrowly accepted by 50.39%), where a lot of people rejected a solution that is objectively more secure than the paper version we have now. Often, resistance is emotional rather than rational, a fear of being forced into something one doesn't fully grasp.

Some people argue for a 'right to be disconnected. How do you react to that concern?

It's a valid argument, and I understand it. But we need to ask what "connected" really means. Having a digital identity doesn't imply being online all the time or being tracked. In the Swiss e-ID, the information stays on your phone; you don't need a Facebook or government account to prove who you are. So being digitalized is not the same as being connected: it simply makes certain processes safer and more efficient.

People's expectations towards the public and private sectors aren't the same…

Definitely. One interesting thing to note is that the private sector brought us e-banking thirty years ago. Nobody voted on it, but everyone uses it. The same goes for email. People are expressing the same fears today about e-ID as could have been expressed over e-banking back then. But the system worked, it's regulated, and people trust it.

The public sector just moves slower, because it listens to the opposition, and that's actually healthy. It allows the system to improve before adoption.

Isn't part of people's distrust just a fear of complexity?

Maybe. But in our daily lives, we use systems that are far more complex without even thinking about it. Tap water, for instance: we don't know how it's filtered or where it comes from, and yet we drink it because we trust the system.

The same goes for trains. What matters is not that people understand the system perfectly, but that it's regulated, reliable, standardized, and audited. The same should apply to digital services, whether they are public or private.

It may also be that people are growing suspicious of processes they don't always understand (crypto, AI, etc). Isn't this authenticity crisis part of the problem?

That's true, but what's interesting is that e-ID can actually be part of the solution. A good digital identity helps fight against fake information or impersonation. With cryptography, you can prove something without revealing the underlying data, for example, that you're over 18, without giving your birth date. Or you can verify that a message or a photo really comes from a public figure because it's digitally signed. These tools can help restore authenticity, therefore build trust.

Ideally, what would e-democracy look like in ten years?

I like to think of e-banking. Thirty years ago, transferring money was slow and complicated; today it's instant and secure. In ten years, I hope e-democracy will feel the same: safe, simple, reliable.

You'll prove who you are, sign documents, or participate in a vote in a way that's smooth, verifiable, and privacy-preserving by default. Maybe this sounds a bit utopic, but I can also imagine a future where every official statement, photo, or quote is digitally signed, so that anyone can verify its authenticity.

Provided by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne