Trust
Provenance is a crucial factor of evaluation when assessing the credibility of records
on the Internet, therefore it needs to be investigated in order to shed light on the
nature and the dynamics of the relationship between records and trust. The latter is
a key concept of archival discipline. However, like provenance, it is a multi-faceted
and cross-domain concept:
trust is about voluntary vulnerability, in that it is based on a voluntary reliance
on someone or something that may cause harm; ergo
trust is about risk management. In fact, risk can be defined as a deviation
- either positive or negative - from the expected (ISO 31000:2009, p. 1). Since
trust "falls between hope and certainty," (Dietz, Gillespie, Chao, 2010, p. 13)
it requires balancing confidence and control, that is, managing uncertainty,
which is the essence of risk management;
trust is a process, since the development of trust in systems as well as in people
is informed by experience. Trust is built, shaped and assessed by applying
known patterns to unknown situations. Therefore, trust changes over time,
according to both the ever-changing factors that affect it, and people and
systems' reaction to such changes;
trust is contextual, because different systems for trust development and
assessment are required for different contexts. Tools, agents, procedures,
techniques and values vary according to the context; therefore,
trust is a cultural thing. The parameters of trust in one cultural context may be
very different from those of another context (Ferrin, Gillespie, 2010, p.
42-86). These parameters must be clearly identified and understood if cross-
cultural trust - like what is needed on the Internet - is to be achieved;
trust is an economic asset. In general, information has become a commodity
with economic value. As a matter of fact, when exchanging information we
exchange something that we consider valuable. Trust is the framework that
allows such value to thrive and be exchanged.3 However, the commodification
of data - which includes sale of personal information and other datasets as
well as mash-ups of data, which in turn leads to creation of new data and value
- is eroding trust and consequently the value of information. This is a crucial
issue in the era of open data and big data.
Like provenance, trust is a complex concept, this is the reason why it is not simple to
deal with it when it comes to records. In fact, records provide evidence of our actions
and thoughts, and they allow us to communicate across space and time. Such
communication is deeply based on trust, to the point where trust is embedded into
records. Records carry tokens of trust: signatures, seals, special signs, the
documentary form itself, they all convey trust, not to mention the content,
including wording and phrasing. Trust is involved in the transmission process too,
since we place a certain level of confidence in the channel, the medium and the
transmission service, including any associated agent and technology. (Duranti,
1998; MacNeil, 2000; Yeo, 2013, p. 214-234). The digital environment is no
different, rather, it is much more complex. Digital technologies allow us to easily
create, use and store documents on the Internet, where they can be de- and
re-contextualized with little attention to their authenticity. Users have little control
over how and where documents are stored in the Cloud, who has control and
jurisdiction, who can access them, or how secure they are. In short, trust is at stake:
in the digital realm we can no longer trust documents using the same approaches
and tools of the past. Therefore, provenance plays a major role here, since it is one of
the crucial factors that support trust. That is why we need methods, tools and
metrics - along with a solid theory - to govern provenance and support the
evaluation of reliability of digital objects on the basis of information on their
provenance. Prior to the digital era, archival materials were trusted because of their
characteristics - as we highlighted above - or their placement within a trusted
repository, i.e., an archives, with preservation, access and use of documentary
objects taking place in an environment or according to processes that were
considered trustable. The digital environment has corrupted such belief. The
challenge today is to do something similar to what has been done with markup
languages: making explicit what is implicit. Archivists and records managers need to
retain control of provenance and make it explicit, so that users are aware of the
quality of the objects and trust them accordingly. The challenge is to find models,
methods and tools to achieve this aim, solid enough to meet scientific criteria, yet
easy enough to be managed by users.
Preservation
Preservation, including digital preservation, is about keeping objects together with
the context that provides meaning to them, that is, the complex network of
relationships - along with the system of their meanings - in which archival objects
have been created, managed and used. Provenance is highly relevant in identifying
and determining such context. Consequently, it is key to determining the identity of
the objects targeted for preservation, because any definition of provenance, be it
narrow or broad, will address at least creation and custodial history (i.e., the chain
of agents that held the materials, together with related facts and events). In
addition, the provenance of digital objects is itself a digital object that requires
preservation. Therefore, provenance, and provenance of provenance are
fundamental aspects in any preservation model, theory and practice.4
Access and use
Access and preservation are two sides of the same coin. In fact, archival materials are
preserved in order to make them available for use. However, "[i]n order to use a
record, it must be accessible," (Kozak, 2015, p. 1) which means that policies and
procedures should be designed and put in place to serve users' information needs.
Provenance plays a role when accessing archival materials, since it is one of the key
access points: the names of either the creator or the institution holding the archival
materials are among the most common elements used in archival queries. Since
provenance is more and more a complex network of relationships - if not a confused
archives in liquid times
232
giovanni michetti provenance in the archives: the challenge of the digital
3 As Sissela Bok puts it, "[w]hatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives."
Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1999), 31n.
4 Significantly, the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) model - the reference model for preservation
adopted worldwide - requires that any object targeted for preservation must be accompanied not only with
some Representation Information providing additional, higher-level meaning to the object, but also with
some Provenance Information describing the object's history (i.e., origins or source, custodial history,
changes, etc.). Provenance Information is in turn a digital object. As such, it must be accompanied with
some Representation Information and some Provenance Information that will document the history of the
Provenance Information. Such a recursive approach creates a complex network of Information Objects that
need to be managed and preserved altogether in order to provide the proper context to the objects targeted
for preservation, and to support their preservation over the long term. See ISO 14721:2012 Space Data and
Information Transfer Systems: Open Archival Information System (OAIS): Reference Model (Geneva:
International Organization for Standardization, 2012).
233