The AJ Andrews Institute publicly introduced the Tightrope Trust Index at Identity Day, held at DNB’s headquarters in Bjørvika, Oslo, on April 16, 2026.

The concept was presented by Shane Alexander Caldwell, Executive Director of the AJ Andrews Institute, during a keynote address followed by a panel discussion on trust in the digital age. The panel was moderated alongside the following participants:

Hans Christian Pretorius, Partner, KPMG Norway Astri Marie Ravnaas, Head of Cyber Security Centre, Norges Bank Investment Management Kim Daniel Engebretsen, Founder and CEO, Cloudless Tor Jomar Nordhagen, Founder and CEO, Identitrust Tore Larsen Orderløkken, Chief Security Officer, Posten Bring.

The presentation grounded the Trust Index in a foundational political question: the state, at its most basic definition, holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given territory. That monopoly now extends into digital domains — identity systems, financial infrastructure, sovereign data architectures — and each of these systems encodes assumptions about the citizens it governs. The Tightrope Trust Index is designed to make those assumptions visible and comparable.

The panel examined whether the systems being built by institutions today are designed to trust citizens or to contain them — and what the distinction means for the legitimacy of digital governance. Panellists were challenged to identify where, precisely, in the systems they build, trust in the citizen is encoded — not compliance, not control, but trust.

Identity Day is an annual event focused on identity, digital infrastructure, and the relationship between individuals and institutions in an increasingly data-driven society.

Further information on the Tightrope Trust Index and upcoming publications from the Institute is available.