Privacy revisited: clearer icons, standards and evaluation of online seals are needed for online trust

When can you actually trust the web services to safely handle your data? A new report by the EU’s cyber security agency ENISA analyses the conditions under which online security and privacy seals help users to evaluate the trustworthiness of a web service. 
    
The report underlines the need for clear icons, standards, assessment and evaluation methodology. Furthermore, a second report addresses the framework, methodology and evaluation for security certification and provides a qualitative analysis of certification practices in the EU.
Numerous policy documents identify marks, seals, logos, icons (collectively referred to as “seals”). These help users to judge the trustworthiness of services offered on the web. But there are many obstacles for users to use these seals, as it is not clear how the seals are granted to the services. ENISA analyses the current situation and identifies key challenges, solutions, and recommendations for online seals.
Key challenges and recommendations:
The two reports deal with (1) how users can use seals to base their trust in a service, and (2) what  we can learn from other certification initiatives to improve these seals. Some of the key challenges and corresponding recommendations are:

Users suffer from information overload. Therefore, web designers need to develop clearer privacy icons, which are based on research, including cultural and legal differences. 
Users are not sufficiently aware of what seals mean. Educational material should be provided to spread knowledge of the existence and meaning of seals.
Seals are not checked by the user. Service providers and web developers need to provide and implement seals that can be automatically checked.
Transparency. Policy makers should demand reliable statistics on certification and seals. The bodies issuing certificates/seals should keep updated, public records on certificates/seals that they have issued.
Reduction of burden. Standardization bodies and responsible stakeholders should develop best practices and standards merging the requirements for security and data protection in order to reduce burden.
Enforcement. The national policy makers should ensure enforcement of such requirements for genuine compliance, for instance by applying sanctions and/or ad-hoc assessments carried on by third parties.

The Executive Director of ENISA, Professor Udo Helmbrecht remarked: “The effectiveness of trust signals must be improved. Regulatory bodies at the EU and national level should set incentives for service providers to obtain better online security and privacy protection”.
 
For full reports: ENISA, On the security, privacy and usability of online seals  
ENISA, Security certification practice in the EU - A case study,
Background: EU Cyber Security Strategy
For interviews; Ulf Bergström, Spokesman, ulf.bergstrom@enisa.europa.eu, mobile: + 30 6948 460 143, or Rodica Tirtea/Stefan Schiffner, Experts, sta@enisa.europa.eu
 
 
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