What Is Trust?

Trust used to be a feeling.

Now, it has to be engineered.

When I think about trust in 911, I think about confidence — the quiet kind.

The confidence that when you call, someone answers.

That the information is right.

That the system will do what it’s supposed to do.

That trust was built by people — dispatchers, technicians, and administrators who showed up every day to make sure things worked. It’s why 911 has been one of the most trusted public institutions in America for over 50 years.

But that kind of trust is getting harder to sustain.

Today, 911 is a data ecosystem — calls, texts, sensors, alarms, and AI all play a role in how emergencies are detected and managed. And every new connection adds complexity — and new ways for trust to break down.

• Predictive data from an alarm system triggers a false alert.

• AI makes an unexpected decision that no one can explain.

• Two systems tell two different versions of the same event.

  
  

When that happens, confidence erodes — not because someone failed, but because there’s no way to prove which data is right.

That’s the heart of it. In a digital 911 world, trust has to become quantifiable and verifiable.It can’t just live in people — it has to live in the system itself.

We need a way to rebuild trust, not just through relationships, but through architecture.

In your experience, where have you seen trust break down in 911 systems — and what did it take to rebuild it?