Trust-M – trustworthy digital public services to support civic agency of immigrants

This article series presents cases of innovations built here in Espoo that strive for a better tomorrow for all.

Even though the Nordic countries are known for high levels of trust between government, institutions and individuals, this trust does not always extend to recent immigrants and migrant communities, and an especially vulnerable group from the labor market point of view are migrant women. Too many find public services inaccessible, non-inclusive or untrustworthy while the possible language barrier and challenges in digital literacy complicate even further.

The city of Espoo is responding to these challenges together with Aalto University, Helsinki University and Tampere University in Finland. In the project, researchers are investigating what trustworthiness means for migrants in the digital age. This understanding will be applied in creating a pilot version of a multimodal and conversational AI system that migrants could use to more easily access relevant information and better engage with public service providers.