People have high levels of trust in the NHS and low levels of trust in big tech, and more people would prefer to use a government-created digital than one created by a private sector provider.

The NHS and Banks have overall highest levels of trust of those institutions mentioned to respondents, while Apple and Google have the lowest, closely followed by the Home Office.

Fig. 26: Q28 — Trust in institutions to hold data about me

Confidence in the NHS as a data holder is consistently high across all demographics:

Fig. 27: Q28 — Trust in NHS to hold data about me (by age)

However, trust in big tech firms is low, with 54% of people thinking that corporations such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon have too much control over their lives.

Fig. 28: Q29 — Increasing use of digital technologies is giving corporations such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon too much control over our lives

44% of people would prefer a digital ID service to be created by the government; 30% would feel comfortable using a service created by a large tech company; and 25% using a service created by a small tech company.

These relatively higher levels of comfort are reflected in the NET levels of comfort across all demographics.