Transparency in the wider context of trust

In this chapter, I explore the nature and various meanings of trust, responsibility and accountability. Trust has several facets; sometimes we trust because we have good reason to do so, and sometimes we resort to trust in the absence of information. We are predisposed to trust, simply because it is a good evolutionary strategy for success. There has recently been some suggestion that we might remove the need for trust using technologies such as blockchain. However, we must still trust the blockchain technology and others who use it with us. Whatever trust is as a psychological mechanism, ultimately we can evaluate trust through resultant behaviour. Indeed to express trust vocally is no more than a kind of trusting behaviour. We may distrust a system based on evidence or bias, and similarly we may mistrust a system on the same bases. Human culture has complex social and legal mechanisms which act to support trust and reinforce trustworthy behaviours. The terms accountability, responsibility and transparency are closely associated with our ideas of trust, and I explore these mechanisms in the following sections. I also discuss the ways in which transparency supports accountability, promotes responsibility and facilitates trust.