Revisiting Trust Management in the Data Economy: A Road Map

In the last two decades, multiple information and communications technology evolutions have boosted the ability to collect and analyze vast numbers of data (on the order of zettabytes). Collectively, they have paved the way for the so-called data economy, revolutionizing most sectors of our society, including health care, transportation, and grids. At the core of this revolution, distributed data-intensive applications compose services operated by multiple parties in the cloud–edge continuum; they process, manage, and exchange massive numbers of data at an unprecedented rate. However, data hold little value without adequate data protection. Traditional solutions, which aim to balance data quality and protection, are insufficient to address the peculiarities of the data economy, including trustworthy data sharing and management, composite service support, and multiparty data lifecycle. This article analyzes how trust management systems (TMSs) can regain the lead in supporting trustworthy data-intensive applications, discussing current challenges and proposing a road map for new-generation TMSs in the data economy.