Verification and trust in healthcare.

'Trust but verify' is a translation of a Russian proverb made famous by former US President Ronald Reagan. In their paper, Graham appear to take an alternate view that might be summarised as The contrast highlights a general question: how do we come to trust in authorities? More specifically, Graham claim: (1) that UK Trusted Research Environments (TREs) are misnamed as future custodians for big health data because their promised verification systems actually negate the uncertainty that trust requires; (2) the public is mistaken if it believes such verification enhances trust; (3) the notion of building public trust in TREs is unclear or misconceived. In response, I propose a more relational, perhaps less reductionist account. I argue (1) that verification is itself a source of uncertainty, so it can't extinguish the uncertainty needed for trust; (2) it's nevertheless possible for verification to enhance feelings of trust thereby reducing our needs for the same; (3) trust is also social, even political, meaning institutions like TREs may become too big to fail-and end up shielding their 'trusted' brand by being less candid about inevitable flaws in their verification systems.