Building trust and ensuring safety are vital to the success of online platforms and communities. Developing a policy based on trust and safety best practices tailored to your organization’s needs creates an environment where users feel secure and receive fair treatment. Here’s why trust and safety policies matter and how your organization can develop one that strikes the right balance.
Importance of trust and safety policies for online platforms and communities
Trust and safety policies provide essential guidance for moderation and safety teams, ensuring informed and consistent decision-making. A well-implemented policy based on trust and safety best practices supports platform growth, enhances brand value, increases retention, mitigates risks, and promotes fairness and transparency. Here’s how:
Support growth
A robust yet fair trust and safety policy demonstrates your commitment to user protection, fostering an environment where people feel confident and comfortable connecting. Positioning your platform as safety-first can help attract new users and encourage engagement to drive growth.
Add value to your brand
Users are more likely to choose platforms—like dating apps, sharing economy services, and caregiving platforms—that prioritize their safety, since these services facilitate offline, real-world interactions. Your trust and safety policy can differentiate your platform from competitors and serve as a key brand asset.
Retain users and reduce churn
Trust is a critical factor in user retention. 4 out of 10 consumers report that they would no longer purchase from a company they don’t trust. A robust trust and safety policy helps prevent incidents that erode confidence. In addition, a policy that minimizes data collection and doesn’t add unnecessary friction to the user experience can reduce churn during the registration and onboarding process.
Mitigate risk
A comprehensive trust and safety policy reduces legal liability, ensures compliance with industry standards, and protects against regulatory requirements. Your trust and safety policy can also guard against data breaches, which cost businesses an average of $4.88 million per occurrence worldwide in 2024.
Promote fairness and transparency
A trust and safety policy sets user conduct standards and ensures community guidelines are enforced fairly. This reduces the risk of actions that can be misconstrued as discriminatory and promotes transparency in decision-making.
Identifying opportunities for trust
Organizations must identify opportunities to build trust before implementing fair and inclusive safety measures. That involves understanding your user base, tracking key metrics, examining competitor policies, and identifying critical issues. Consider these strategies:
Get to know your user base
Seeking feedback from your existing user base helps uncover their top trust and safety concerns. Use polls, surveys, focus groups, or virtual community forums to gain insights, or monitor social media and review platforms and forums to see how users perceive your platform’s security measures.
Track key metrics
Analyzing data can reveal potential trust and safety pain points. Track key metrics like user retention, bounce rates, and complaint resolution turnaround times. In addition, understand how users interact with privacy settings, security alerts, and other trust and safety features to identify trends and areas for improvement.
Examine competitor policies
Review the trust and safety policies of leading competitors. Consider their strengths and identify gaps where you can better address your users’ trust and safety needs.
Identify critical issues
Auditing support tickets and user journey maps can help you pinpoint recurring trust and safety challenges. Prioritize these issues in your policy development to create a safer, more user-friendly experience.
What industries benefit most from trust and safety policies?
While all online platforms can benefit from prioritizing security, some industries require strong trust and safety policies due to the nature of their services. These include online dating platforms, caregiving platforms, rideshare services, vehicle sharing and rental platforms, and visitor management systems. Here’s how each can strengthen trust and safety:
Vehicle sharing and rental platforms
Traditional and peer-to-peer vehicle sharing and rental platforms can minimize risks by:
- Setting minimum age requirements for renters
- Requiring a valid driver’s license for rentals
- Banning users with suspended, restricted, or revoked licenses
- Offering lower rental rates for individuals with clean motor vehicle records
Rideshare platforms
Rideshare drivers are vulnerable to risks each time they pick up a new rider. Policies that enhance trust and protection include:
- Biometric identity verification (self-verification) for riders
- A one-strike policy for riders who violate user conduct codes
Visitor management systems
Organizations rely on visitor management systems to control access and protect their populations. A strong trust and safety policy may include:
- A flagging system based on criminal history safety screenings
- Customizable access restrictions, such as limiting access to certain areas of a facility or requiring an escort
Online dating platforms
Users expect online dating platforms to combat fake profiles, address online abuse, and support safer offline connections. Policies that can enhance trust include:
- Banning individuals who have domestic violence charges or convictions within the last seven years
- Banning individuals who appear on the National Sex Offender Registry or any state, territorial, or tribal sex offender registries
- Imposing a one-strike rule for online harassment
- Adding identity verification to the registration process
Caregiving platforms
Caregivers must feel safe entering the homes of clients, and platforms can limit risks by:
- Conducting national criminal database and sex offender registry safety screenings on new clients’ addresses
- Sending two caregivers to homes where risks have been identified
- Restricting services in flagged locations to daylight hours
Trust and Safety best practices
As you begin drafting your trust and safety policies, keep the following trust and safety best practices in mind to establish comprehensive guidelines for your platform.
Safeguard sensitive data
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults want stricter regulations on how companies handle personal information due to privacy and security concerns. To build trust, collect minimal personal information needed to support your trust and safety efforts, since unnecessary data collection can feel intrusive and increase the financial risks associated with data breaches.
Comply with regulations
Align your trust and safety policies with industry and data privacy regulations. Stay informed about federal and state legislations to anticipate future requirements and proactively adjust policies for seamless compliance.
Promote online and offline safety
Effective trust and safety policies consider risks in both digital and real-world interactions. They should combat fake profiles, harassment, and fraud while facilitating safer face-to-face connections for online dating, caregiving, ridesharing, vehicle sharing, and more.
Foster data transparency
After reading your trust and safety policy, users should have a clear understanding of what information you collect, why it’s necessary, and how it’s stored, shared, and protected. Your policy should also outline users’ rights regarding access, deletion, or correction of their data.
Set clear user conduct rules
Your trust and safety policy should define acceptable behavior in clear, simple language. State the consequences for lack of compliance to ensure users and moderation teams have clear expectations and minimize misunderstandings.
How to establish core principles and policies
Follow these steps to establish core trust and safety principles and policies for your platform.
1. Evaluate risks and needs
Identify trust and safety risks affecting your community, employees, assets, and reputation. Prioritize them based on potential impact.
2. Determine what data you need
Define the data required to support trust and safety measures. For example:
- What safety screenings do you need to conduct to assess risks?
- Will identity verification be necessary to enforce your trust and safety policy?
- How will data collection align with privacy regulations?
3. Establish consistent processes
Create a standard procedure for conducting safety checks and verifications. Define the following:
- When checks will occur in your workflow
- How they’ll be performed
- Who will be responsible for carrying out the process
4. Set clear guidelines for decision-making
Ensure fairness and transparency by establishing clear guidelines for your moderation or trust and safety team. Specify what types of records or data are actionable and set expectations for how to respond to them.
5. Identify key metrics
To measure the success of your trust and safety policy, identify key metrics to track over time. Some areas you may wish to focus on include:
- Reduction in incidents
- Increased adoption rates
- Improved customer satisfaction scores
- Lower operational overhead
6. Practice transparency
Make your trust and safety policy easily accessible to internal teams and users to ensure transparency and accountability.
7. Review and update regularly
Using the metrics you established, monitor the success of your trust and safety policy over time. Review and update your policy accordingly to strengthen your security efforts as you identify gaps.
How can automation help establish fairness and safety for communities and app users?
Automation helps establish fairness and safety by seamlessly integrating safety screenings and identity verification into your existing processes. When safety checks occur automatically, all users receive the same treatment, and your team consistently receives reliable data to assess risks and take action. Automated tools can also ensure that data from screenings is accurate and consistent, further strengthening trust and security.
How Checkr Trust can support your policies
Building a strong trust and safety policy starts with reliable data. Checkr Trust’s API-first trust and safety solutions seamlessly integrate automated safety screenings and identity verification into your existing workflows—right at the points when risk assessments matter most. Our powerful filtering tools help your team focus on relevant data, promoting informed decision-making without adding friction to your process.
Schedule a demo today to see how Checkr Trust can support policy creation that drives growth and user satisfaction.
