Information Technology Services (ITS)

Dr. Donna K. Kidwell in conversation with tech editor Shane Schick at FutureIT

Published on: June 13, 2025

“We wake up with a different mission than the bad guys.”

Those were among the insights shared by Dr. Donna K. Kidwell, Chief Information Officer of the University of Toronto, at FutureIT Toronto 2025 on May 1, 2025.

“Our teams are professionally trying to support research, learning, teaching and libraries,” said Dr. Kidwell, contrasting the mission of the university and its IT staff against that of malicious actors and the increasingly evolving nature and volume of threats we face.

Dr. Kidwell was interviewed on stage by Shane Schick, contributing editor at cio.com and International Data Corporation (IDC), and formerly editor-in-chief at IT World Canada and a technology columnist with The Globe and Mail.

Schick began by asking her about a concept close to her heart: digital trust.

“There’s so much out there—cyber security, privacy and alongside that: misinformation, disinformation,” said Dr. Kidwell. “We should frame all those things within the concept of digital trust. Sure, we want our systems to be trustworthy— they’re reliable, they’re resilient, they’re secure. But then, start layering in privacy that respects the individual and their choices. Then we can start talking about levels of disclosure—what you choose to share and when you choose to share it. Trust means that I, as a user, feel like I have agency.”

Building digital trust across a large, complex organization like Canada’s leading research university across three campuses is no small task. Dr. Kidwell remarked on the importance of relationship-building and communication in fostering digital trust.

Photo courtesy of FutureIT.

“My teams reach out across U of T’s campuses to figure out how they relate to other parts of the organization,” she says.

Schick observed that large, federated organizations are sometimes like “fiefdoms.”

“How do you break down silos? How do you establish a sense of cohesion?” he asked.

“You do have feudal and territorial spaces,” agreed Dr. Kidwell. “But communities in cyber recognize that they can learn better together. We have organizations like CANARIE and CanSSOC thinking about how to bring the community together in greater purpose.”

The conversation then turned to the very real challenge of proliferating devices, platforms and systems—something that is addressed by, among other things, the university’s awareness and management of covered equipment.

“There was a time when the technology you used at work was simply what was issued to you by your employer,” said Schick. “Now, many people just download and use their own technologies of choice. Of course, there should be some degree of autonomy. But how rigid do organizations have to be?”

Dr. Kidwell raised novel methods like alternate perspectives on architectures, securing data where it has gravity and spending energy and resources to create security by design and privacy by design—crediting Ann Cavoukian, former Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, for those concepts.

“While these are hard practices in principle, I think the future is quickly making it not so hard. It’s more about how intentional and thoughtful we can be. It’s not just a data governance discussion but a data management discussion.”

The conversation concluded with Schick asking about measuring success. How might we measure the successful establishment of, say, digital trust?

Dr. Kidwell noted the traditional cyber metrics that IT professionals and leaders use: for example, measuring the coverage of multi-factor authentication or endpoint protection.

“Digital trust lets you talk to folks on, say, the brand and reputation side [of the university]—those of us who are thinking about loyalty, student retention, student experience. Can I start working with, say, human factors folks or the folks that are doing Google analytics? Can we understand how strong the bonds are across the digital experience?”

The conversation concluded with Dr. Kidwell remarking on the importance of agility in a rapidly evolving technological environment, as well as the key work of translating an IT team’s successes to leaders outside the technology world.

“The stakeholders that we work with should feel a sense of relief and appreciation for the IT teams that do this work,” she said.

FutureIT events continue to take place in various locations worldwide; visit their website to learn more.