Information Integrity and Public Trust
The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Decisions about information involve some of the most sensitive questions in public life: what may be said, what may be removed, who must disclose what, and how authorities communicate. This page locates the competent decision-makers on the questions Information Integrity and Public Trust examines, sets out the boundaries between them, and explains how dialogue can inform their decisions without replacing their authority or influencing editorial independence.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For decision-rights context, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and flood water, framed on Eastern Europe; 2 further NASA layers wait in the list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
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Decision rights in Information Integrity and Public Trust define who decides what in information and public trust as well as society and human development: public authorities take statutory decisions, operators and institutions take operational ones, and affected communities, including Indigenous rights holders, hold rights of consent and participation. The platform brings evidence and options to those who decide and takes no decision itself.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Parliaments set the legal limits of expression and the duties of intermediaries; courts interpret them and protect fundamental rights.
Where they exist, media and online safety regulators apply the law with protected independence.
News organizations decide what they publish under editorial independence; platforms decide their rules and design within the law.
| Decision | Holder |
|---|---|
| Moderate content under terms of service | Platform |
| Enforce platform regulation | Designated regulator, such as Digital Services Coordinators in the EU |
| Restrict expression lawfully | Legislature and courts, under the three-part test |
| Issue official crisis information | Designated authority |
Public authorities decide how they communicate with citizens, including warnings and health guidance, and are accountable for the accuracy and fairness of that communication. Their role is to inform, not to control the wider information environment. Independent fact-checkers, researchers and civil society organizations make their own judgements under their own methods.
Citizens and communities hold rights of access to information and freedom of expression, and in many places rights over data about themselves. Any measure that affects these rights needs a legal basis, proportionality and an avenue for challenge.
Information Integrity and Public Trust brings research, cases and structured options to people who decide, and convenes dialogues among researchers, communicators, platforms and public institutions. It does not decide on content, advise on the removal of specific speech, act for any authority or interfere with editorial independence.
GRF convenes and governs programmes. It does not regulate, finance, procure or certify, and hosting or sponsorship confers no authority over findings.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Decision rights matrix | A table showing which body proposes, approves, executes and oversees each decision. |
| Competent authority | The body that a law or regulation designates to exercise a given power or duty, such as a supervisor, a civil protection agency or a ministry; only it can take the decisions the law assigns to it. |
| Free, prior and informed consent | The right of Indigenous peoples to give or withhold consent, without coercion, in advance and with full information, to measures that affect their lands, territories and rights, as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples sets out. |
| Subsidiarity | The principle that a decision is taken at the lowest level able to take it well, with a higher level acting only where the objective cannot be achieved closer to the people concerned; the Treaty on European Union states it. |
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.