Recommendations for Business Leaders

Private sector leadership and innovation are essential to closing the public trust gap. Business has the agility, resources, and customer relationships to demonstrate the value of digital trust capabilities and drive market adoption.

Establish Storytelling Campaigns

Establish and facilitate storytelling campaigns among private and public sector entities to amplify benefits. Move beyond hypothetical arguments to real-world experience.

What to address in your storytelling:

  • Privacy, transparency, and control: Show how your solutions give customers control over personal and business information
  • Cyber-safety education: Educate the public about modernization developments and security benefits
  • Sector-specific examples: Real-world cases from aviation, financial services, healthcare, legal sectors showing tangible improvements
  • Pain point solutions: Demonstrate specific daily frustrations that digital trust alleviates
  • Workforce development: Highlight partnerships with universities and talent development programs
  • Customer testimonials: Let users explain benefits in their own words

Campaign approach: Launch coordinated storytelling initiatives in partnership with government, banks, and other trusted institutions. Use multiple channels and formats to reach diverse audiences.

“Trust is local, and designing made-in-Canada solutions for digital access and verification will help build consumer confidence, trust, and broad adoption.”— Neil Butters, VP of Product, Interac Verified

Build Visible Partnerships

Build more visible partnerships with established institutions across sectors that interact with the public—universities, colleges, banks, and other trusted organizations.

Partnership opportunities:

  • Educational institutions: Student credentials, campus access, alumni services
  • Financial institutions: Account opening, fraud prevention, secure transactions
  • Healthcare providers: Patient identification, record access, appointment management
  • Employers: Employee credentials, benefits access, HR processes
  • Community organizations: Membership management, service delivery

Why partnerships matter: Trust is local. Leveraging established, trusted institutions accelerates adoption and demonstrates broad support for digital trust capabilities.

“We’re working to help the public understand that global standards increase trust, reduce fraud and make it safer and more convenient for our customers to transact.”— Marie Jordan, Senior Director, VISA, Global Standards and Industry Engagement

Prioritize Interoperability

Consider interoperability with future government-issued digital credentials when developing proprietary solutions. Fragmented systems create friction; interoperability creates value.

Interoperability actions:

  • Adopt open standards: Use globally recognized standards like W3C Verifiable Credentials
  • Design for portability: Allow users to move credentials between systems
  • Engage in standards development: Participate actively in setting industry standards
  • Test cross-platform: Ensure solutions work with other providers’ systems
  • Plan for government integration: Build with future public-sector interoperability in mind

Business case: While proprietary systems might offer short-term competitive advantage, interoperability expands the total addressable market and creates network effects that benefit everyone.

Share Best Practices and Support Advocacy

Bolster government efforts to develop solutions by continuing to share best practices and supporting civil society advocacy for digital trust.

How to contribute:

  • Join industry associations: Participate in organizations like DIACC to shape collective action
  • Contribute to public education: Share benefits and wins from systems already in place
  • Engage with policymakers: Provide practical input on regulations and frameworks
  • Support research: Fund or participate in studies on adoption and effectiveness
  • Share learnings: Publish case studies and lessons learned (both successes and failures)
  • Mentor emerging players: Help smaller organizations navigate digital trust

Adopt and Champion Trust Frameworks

Wide adoption of trust frameworks and standards is essential for the ecosystem to thrive. Organizations must commit to verified, accountable practices.

Framework adoption:

  • Implement Pan-Canadian Trust Framework: Use PCTF as foundation for services
  • Seek certification: Pursue DIACC’s Voilà Verified trustmark to demonstrate commitment
  • Document compliance: Show how services meet framework requirements
  • Participate in governance: Engage in framework maintenance and evolution
  • Advocate for adoption: Encourage partners and suppliers to adopt frameworks

Why frameworks matter: They define a duty of care that citizens, clients, and customers should expect while using modern digital services. Frameworks reduce friction, increase trust, and enable scaling across the ecosystem.

“Securing digital trust for the supply chain and global digital economy depends on local and international leadership and collaboration to advance frameworks and standards that ensure broad benefits.”— Don Cuthbertson, Chief Executive Officer, Portage CyberTech

Address Speed and Scale Challenges

The velocity of transactions in specific industries (aviation, financial services) necessitates an innovation pace governments struggle to match. Private sector can help bridge this gap.

Business approaches:

  • Move fast with standards: Adopt existing standards rather than waiting for government direction
  • Design for future integration: Build to accommodate government solutions when they arrive
  • Share urgency: Help policymakers understand the pace of change and competitive threats
  • Pilot at scale: Demonstrate what works with real implementations
  • Invest in education: Don’t wait for government to lead on public awareness

“If there is something of value people will adopt it. It is that simple.”— Mel Crocker, Chief Information Officer, Air Canada

The Private Sector’s Unique Strengths

Business brings several advantages to closing the trust gap:

  • Customer relationships: Direct connections with users to demonstrate value
  • Innovation speed: Ability to pilot and iterate quickly
  • Design expertise: Focus on user experience that government often struggles with
  • Market incentives: Drive to solve real problems customers face
  • Resources: Investment capacity to develop solutions at scale
  • Competition: Multiple approaches reveal best practices faster

Key insight from research: When creating a digital identity framework, most Canadians feel that collaboration between the public and private sectors is the best approach, with 71% supporting this model (up from 65% in 2021).

This isn’t about government OR business—it’s about government AND business working together, each contributing their unique strengths to build an ecosystem that benefits everyone.