Every person and organization needs to be able to make their own decisions about how they do things, particularly concerning risky things.  But, at the same time, as everything in our world becomes ever-more interconnected, we increasingly rely on the appropriate behavior of others nearly as much as on our own behavior for our safety.  And others depend on us.

The idea of interconnected safety applies, for example, to safety from the coronavirus, computer hacking, and the safety of our children from sexual abuse and misconduct (SAM).  Although relying on others’ behavior for safety isn’t new, our dependence on each other is growing as riskiness, change, and interconnectedness all accelerate.

As a result, more risks are becoming too big to hope people and organizations are managing them well.  We increasingly need to know risk is being managed well, both for our own sake and for others.

The serious challenge is to identify a credible way of assessing and then signaling how well risk is being managed in ways that both sides of the equation can trust; that those managing risk can trust that the process won’t lead to their disclosing sensitive information and those relying on the signal about risk management quality can confidently do so.

That risk management must be capable of being trusted is a BOKRIM core principle.