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Reporting, regulation through data, mapping & participatory indexing: when public actors turn to citizen crowdsourcing

Published on 13 May 2019
Update on 26 September 2022
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Summary

To accomplish their missions, administrations, communities, regulatory authorities and archive services now turn to the public, to the "multitude".

"Citizen crowdsourcing", "urban crowdsourcing", "collaborative" or "participatory" production, "crowdsourcing", "outsourcing to the crowd": the terms abound and are jostling to designate these approaches that are inspired by the production of "common goods" such as Wikipedia or OpenstretMap.

These calls for public contributions, through formalized procedures, aim, depending on the case, or combine, different objectives:

  • Optimize public action based on a more detailed knowledge of the terrain or practices: data that is sometimes richer than that produced by sensors
  • Develop a new channel to bring public action closer to the expectations of citizens or stakeholders.
  • Addressing the limitations of traditional participation mechanisms
  • Mobilize users' counter-expertise to reduce the asymmetry of information that hinders the action of control services or regulatory authorities
  • Identify "malfunctions" in order to correct them
  • To detect harmful situations (such as the undesirable effects of a drug), their possible frequency: if these effects are repeated, if they are massive, the public authority can launch a study, or even initiate proceedings.
The generic term "reporting", often used, actually covers a whole spectrum of situations, ranging from simple complaints toalerts.

These communities that rely on Openstreetmap and participatory mapping

A number of local authorities offer citizens the opportunity to contribute to the knowledge of their territory: a way to co-construct the territory with the inhabitants and sometimes also to compensate for the erosion of budget resources. In addition to traditional information such as traffic lanes, buildings or water surfaces, users can incorporate into this collaborative map data such as bicycle paths, glass skips, public toilets or drinking water points. Some communities even organize workshops, based on the model of the carto-parties organized by the OpenstreetMap communities, to gather as much information as possible on a given territory in a short period of time.
  • Île-de-France Mobilités (formerly STIF, Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France) undertook in 2017 to involve the people of Ile-de-France in a census of cycling facilities throughout the region.
  • The city of Lannion decided in 2016 to move to OpenStreetMap. To involve citizens, it has been organizing contests since then. The second edition, in 2017, was about shops. The third edition in 2018 was on the theme of hiking and soft travel.
  • The department of Allier has decided to call upon its inhabitants to build up a geographic database, rather than resorting to a service provider. To this end, it organizes carto-parties.
  • As part of its OpenData approach, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole has entered into a cooperation with the local OpenStreetMap community to update data related to the 31 municipalities of the metropolis. Read more

40,000 reports of adverse health events (in 9 months)

In March 2017, the Ministry of Health opened the signalement-sante.gouv.fr portal to allow users to report adverse effects related to the use of a drug, medical device or other health or cosmetic product to the health authorities online. An initial assessment shows that Signalement-sante.gouv.fr meets the public's expectations.
  • Between March 13, 2017, the date of opening to the public, and January 31, 2018, 40,120 reports were received: 34,217 (85%) were from users and only 5,903 (15%) from healthcare professionals, both liberal and institutional.
  • "The majority of reports from users are concentrated on products for which the patient is aware of the possibility of adverse effects, such as drugs and, to a lesser extent, medical devices.
  • 81% of the reports concern drugs (32,649 reports), 6% concern medical devices, 4% concern serious adverse events related to care and 3% concern addictovigilance situations. Read more

Applications for reporting urban problems: a use that comes up against the fragmentation of platforms in France

Many cities around the world allow citizens to report a wide variety of problems or incidents from their mobile devices: road, sidewalk, tree and garden maintenance, graffiti, bulky objects and abandoned vehicles, connectivity, faulty traffic lights and street lighting, dangerous intersections, potholes... After identifying a problem, the user selects the type of incident in the application, possibly specifying the nature or importance of the problem, takes a photo that the GPS will geolocate to complete the description and automatically transmits to the relevant department. The processing chain, dematerialized from end to end, allows the city services concerned (mainly the road department) to have a global vision of the incidents and to plan their interventions. Platforms of this type have been set up in the United Kingdom (FixMyStreet), the United States and the Netherlands.

Several platforms (Tellmycity, Allô Mairie, Fixmaville, Keyclic, BetterStreet, Beecitiz, etc.) have emerged in France since 2010. In a recent study, which aims to understand how to involve citizens and civil society in the design and delivery of public services, the interministerial directorate for public transformation (DITP) looks at the case of applications for reporting urban problems, among a dozen initiatives involving citizens and public services.

Unlike FixMyStreet, their equivalents in France "are experiencing difficulties in spreading to the whole territory: limited adoption by civil society, competitive landscape with a large number of players" . Read more

SignalConso, a new reporting platform for consumers

This new platform allows consumers to easily report problems encountered daily during their purchases: price error, expired product, misleading advertising, etc. The report is registered in the database of the General Directorate for Competition and Consumer Affairs (DGCCRF). If the reports are too frequent, numerous or extremely serious, a control of the establishment will be triggered.

The platform is being tested in the Centre-Val de Loire and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions. The DGCCRF had recorded 33,551 online complaints in 2017 for consumer products or abusive practices.

ARCEP undertakes to regulate telecoms "through data

With the"regulation by data", the French regulatory authority for electronic communications and posts (Arcep) intends since 2016 to implement a new mode of action that complements the traditional tools of the regulator. Its principle: "mobilize users to report problems encountered via an alert space, moving from a consumer complaint logic to a citizen act. By creating an alliance with the "multitude", the Authority wants each user to participate in the regulation and benefit from a better regulated market".
  • ARCEP opened in October 2017 " I havelertArcep ", a platform " to bring up from the field any problem related to mobile Internet, fixed Internet as well as postal services ". Individuals and companies can report malfunctions encountered in their relations with mobile operators, Internet service providers or postal service actor. The platform has collected in a few months 34,000 "malfunction reports ". The complaints concern the quality of service of the fixed or mobile Internet, the invoicing by the telecom operators, the blocks to subscribe to the fiber, the neutrality of the Internet, the postal service, the spams, the frauds, the VAS (value added services: special numbers).
  • To further strengthen this data-driven regulation, ARCEP has launched a public consultation on its project for an API to be deployed directly in ISP boxes to measure quality of service on fixed networks.

Collaborative indexing: when cultural institutions call on the public to annotate works, documents and archives

The indexing campaign of the records of the soldiers of the First World War and its success (1.4 million indexed records) have given visibility to the various forms of "cultural crowdsourcing" deployed by museums, archives and libraries. Many institutions now offer the public the opportunity to annotate, correct or complete digitized resources, and to take part, through their contributions, in the enhancement of collections as well as in the knowledge of heritage. These practices of " crowd-sourcing"can take various forms: nominative survey of genealogical sources, indexing of records, identification of photographs, correction of errors in digitized documents ... Read more

Cobot: a state startup and app "to put small digital contributions to work for the public good"

Recognizing the shape of a roof to calculate the solar energy potential or photos of wildlife to protect biodiversity, facilitating the massive publication of open data thanks to automatic blurring of faces ... The potential of the application of artificial intelligence to image recognition is immense for public administration. The main hurdle is to have a sufficient volume of properly qualified images (by humans) to then train the available models and leverage the potential of artificial intelligence for the benefit of our public policies. The state startup " Co-construct: Putting small digital contributions to work for the public interest " has set out to solve this equation by developing a platform, Cobot, that allows citizens to classify, qualify or annotate images for public interest projects. Read more

See also:

IDDRI: A more contributive and sustainable city: urban crowdsourcing and digital citizen participation

Reporting, regulation through data, mapping & participatory indexing: when public actors turn to citizen crowdsourcing

To accomplish their missions, administrations, communities, regulatory authorities and archive services now turn to the public, to the "multitude".

"Citizen crowdsourcing", "urban crowdsourcing", "collaborative" or "participatory" production, "crowdsourcing", "outsourcing to the crowd": the terms abound and are jostling to designate these approaches that are inspired by the production of "common goods" such as Wikipedia or OpenstretMap.

These calls for public contributions, through formalized procedures, aim, depending on the case, or combine, different objectives:

  • Optimize public action based on a more detailed knowledge of the terrain or practices: data that is sometimes richer than that produced by sensors
  • Develop a new channel to bring public action closer to the expectations of citizens or stakeholders.
  • Addressing the limitations of traditional participation mechanisms
  • Mobilize users' counter-expertise to reduce the asymmetry of information that hinders the action of control services or regulatory authorities
  • Identify "malfunctions" in order to correct them
  • To detect harmful situations (such as the undesirable effects of a drug), their possible frequency: if these effects are repeated, if they are massive, the public authority can launch a study, or even initiate proceedings.
The generic term "reporting", often used, actually covers a whole spectrum of situations, ranging from simple complaints toalerts.

These communities that rely on Openstreetmap and participatory mapping

A number of local authorities offer citizens the opportunity to contribute to the knowledge of their territory: a way to co-construct the territory with the inhabitants and sometimes also to compensate for the erosion of budget resources. In addition to traditional information such as traffic lanes, buildings or water surfaces, users can incorporate into this collaborative map data such as bicycle paths, glass skips, public toilets or drinking water points. Some communities even organize workshops, based on the model of the carto-parties organized by the OpenstreetMap communities, to gather as much information as possible on a given territory in a short period of time.
  • Île-de-France Mobilités (formerly STIF, Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France) undertook in 2017 to involve the people of Ile-de-France in a census of cycling facilities throughout the region.
  • The city of Lannion decided in 2016 to move to OpenStreetMap. To involve citizens, it has been organizing contests since then. The second edition, in 2017, was about shops. The third edition in 2018 was on the theme of hiking and soft travel.
  • The department of Allier has decided to call upon its inhabitants to build up a geographic database, rather than resorting to a service provider. To this end, it organizes carto-parties.
  • As part of its OpenData approach, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole has entered into a cooperation with the local OpenStreetMap community to update data related to the 31 municipalities of the metropolis. Read more

40,000 reports of adverse health events (in 9 months)

In March 2017, the Ministry of Health opened the signalement-sante.gouv.fr portal to allow users to report adverse effects related to the use of a drug, medical device or other health or cosmetic product to the health authorities online. An initial assessment shows that Signalement-sante.gouv.fr meets the public's expectations.
  • Between March 13, 2017, the date of opening to the public, and January 31, 2018, 40,120 reports were received: 34,217 (85%) were from users and only 5,903 (15%) from healthcare professionals, both liberal and institutional.
  • "The majority of reports from users are concentrated on products for which the patient is aware of the possibility of adverse effects, such as drugs and, to a lesser extent, medical devices.
  • 81% of the reports concern drugs (32,649 reports), 6% concern medical devices, 4% concern serious adverse events related to care and 3% concern addictovigilance situations. Read more

Applications for reporting urban problems: a use that comes up against the fragmentation of platforms in France

Many cities around the world allow citizens to report a wide variety of problems or incidents from their mobile devices: road, sidewalk, tree and garden maintenance, graffiti, bulky objects and abandoned vehicles, connectivity, faulty traffic lights and street lighting, dangerous intersections, potholes... After identifying a problem, the user selects the type of incident in the application, possibly specifying the nature or importance of the problem, takes a photo that the GPS will geolocate to complete the description and automatically transmits to the relevant department. The processing chain, dematerialized from end to end, allows the city services concerned (mainly the road department) to have a global vision of the incidents and to plan their interventions. Platforms of this type have been set up in the United Kingdom (FixMyStreet), the United States and the Netherlands.

Several platforms (Tellmycity, Allô Mairie, Fixmaville, Keyclic, BetterStreet, Beecitiz, etc.) have emerged in France since 2010. In a recent study, which aims to understand how to involve citizens and civil society in the design and delivery of public services, the interministerial directorate for public transformation (DITP) looks at the case of applications for reporting urban problems, among a dozen initiatives involving citizens and public services.

Unlike FixMyStreet, their equivalents in France "are experiencing difficulties in spreading to the whole territory: limited adoption by civil society, competitive landscape with a large number of players" . Read more

SignalConso, a new reporting platform for consumers

This new platform allows consumers to easily report problems encountered daily during their purchases: price error, expired product, misleading advertising, etc. The report is registered in the database of the General Directorate for Competition and Consumer Affairs (DGCCRF). If the reports are too frequent, numerous or extremely serious, a control of the establishment will be triggered.

The platform is being tested in the Centre-Val de Loire and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions. The DGCCRF had recorded 33,551 online complaints in 2017 for consumer products or abusive practices.

ARCEP undertakes to regulate telecoms "through data

With the"regulation by data", the French regulatory authority for electronic communications and posts (Arcep) intends since 2016 to implement a new mode of action that complements the traditional tools of the regulator. Its principle: "mobilize users to report problems encountered via an alert space, moving from a consumer complaint logic to a citizen act. By creating an alliance with the "multitude", the Authority wants each user to participate in the regulation and benefit from a better regulated market".
  • ARCEP opened in October 2017 " I havelertArcep ", a platform " to bring up from the field any problem related to mobile Internet, fixed Internet as well as postal services ". Individuals and companies can report malfunctions encountered in their relations with mobile operators, Internet service providers or postal service actor. The platform has collected in a few months 34,000 "malfunction reports ". The complaints concern the quality of service of the fixed or mobile Internet, the invoicing by the telecom operators, the blocks to subscribe to the fiber, the neutrality of the Internet, the postal service, the spams, the frauds, the VAS (value added services: special numbers).
  • To further strengthen this data-driven regulation, ARCEP has launched a public consultation on its project for an API to be deployed directly in ISP boxes to measure quality of service on fixed networks.

Collaborative indexing: when cultural institutions call on the public to annotate works, documents and archives

The indexing campaign of the records of the soldiers of the First World War and its success (1.4 million indexed records) have given visibility to the various forms of "cultural crowdsourcing" deployed by museums, archives and libraries. Many institutions now offer the public the opportunity to annotate, correct or complete digitized resources, and to take part, through their contributions, in the enhancement of collections as well as in the knowledge of heritage. These practices of " crowd-sourcing"can take various forms: nominative survey of genealogical sources, indexing of records, identification of photographs, correction of errors in digitized documents ... Read more

Cobot: a state startup and app "to put small digital contributions to work for the public good"

Recognizing the shape of a roof to calculate the solar energy potential or photos of wildlife to protect biodiversity, facilitating the massive publication of open data thanks to automatic blurring of faces ... The potential of the application of artificial intelligence to image recognition is immense for public administration. The main hurdle is to have a sufficient volume of properly qualified images (by humans) to then train the available models and leverage the potential of artificial intelligence for the benefit of our public policies. The state startup " Co-construct: Putting small digital contributions to work for the public interest " has set out to solve this equation by developing a platform, Cobot, that allows citizens to classify, qualify or annotate images for public interest projects. Read more

See also:

IDDRI: A more contributive and sustainable city: urban crowdsourcing and digital citizen participation

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Labo République Française Agence nationale de cohésion des territoires
Reporting, regulation through data, mapping & participatory indexing: when public actors turn to citizen crowdsourcing