IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Fall 2014 - 69

as a communication medium and
determine whether such an interface is able to satisfy privacy concerns and improve participation
rates. Simultaneously, perspectives
held by different segments of the
community can be established.
In evaluating the potential of
PS and noise mapping as a suitable
tool for enhancing public participation, the following criteria should
be applied [3]: place, novelty, significance, utility, effectiveness,
longevity, and transferability. The
proposed platform and application
meets these criteria. Also essential
are: detailed privacy impact assessment, consultation of the OAIC
app developers guide, interface
for communicating data protection
guarantees, implications and privacy preference options, and evaluation of incentivization strategies.
In assessing the potential of PS
to engage citizens in local government activity, the following additional performance indicators are
suggested: user uptake and participation, user experience analysis, operational change/efficiency
improvements, trust management
analysis, and contrast between PS
and existing engagement tools.

ICT Protections Needed
for Citizen Engagement
The proliferation of ICT and its
rapid adoption by citizens is offering unprecedented reach into
numerous aspects of everyday living. The ability to utilize Smartphones as sensing devices, from
which collected data can be easily shared, has made concepts of
co-production and citizen science,
specifically participatory sensing,
more attractive to governments
and organizations. Yet many issues
must be addressed before the concerns of participants (citizens) and
PS organizers are satisfied. We
have considered these challenges
through the lens of local government and its engagement with
its citizens, addressing specific
operational and service provision

Incorporation of privacy
precautions serves to establish the
necessary trust for participants
to willingly share their personal
resources and data.
requirements. Adequate value provision warrants the participation of
citizens. Incorporation of privacy
precautions serves to establish the
necessary trust for participants
to willingly share their personal
resources and data.
Citizen engagement and empowerment is strengthened through the
establishment of a participatory
culture. Applying co-production
through citizen science to local
democracy, we are able to obtain
user input in decision-making by
authorities. A suitably designed
interaction framework (such as PS)
offers motivation and accountability
through understanding of contributions and enhanced social perception. The current context of fiscal
constraint provides an additional
and compelling motivation for governments to engage directly with
citizens in efforts to address issues
of community concern. In this context, co-production supported by
appropriate technology may have
application across a much broader
range of policy and service areas.
Identifying and taking advantage of
those opportunities requires policy
frameworks that provide incentives
and safeguards for citizens, providers, and governments. In serving interactive local governance,
the incorporation of principles of
transparency and accountability
into the system ensures a sufficient
and mutual trust between the government and citizens. This can be
measured through effectiveness of
engagement and satisfaction with
privacy provisions and guarantees.
The variety of implications
from the collection and sharing of
personally identifiable information demands a suite of solutions in

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

FALL 2014

order to provide strong protections.
These include relevant privacy legislation, guidelines for developers,
and implementation of privacy by
design. Where such protections
remain insufficient, greater effort
needs to be applied in raising user
awareness of associated risks. In
this way, users are given the opportunity and flexibility to self-determine their level of engagement.

Author Information
S. Marusic, J. Gubbi, and M.
Palaniswami are with the Department of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, at The University
of Melbourne, Australia. Email:
slaven@unimelb.edu.au.
H. Sullivan is with the Melbourne School of Government, The
University of Melbourne, Australia.
At the time this work was conducted, Y.W. Law was with the
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University
of Melbourne, Australia. He is now
with the School of Engineering,
University of South Australia.

Acknowledgment
This work was enabled through
funding from the Institute for a
Broadband-Enabled Society, and
the input of research students Aravinda Rao and Fu-Chun Hsu. The
authors would also like to thank
those who contributed domain
expertise into the research, particularly representatives from the City
of Melbourne.

References

[1] J. Silvertown, "A new dawn for citizen science," Trends in Ecology & Evolution, vol. 24,
no. 9, pp. 467-471, 2009.
[2] CoM, "Urban Health Profile," City of Melbourne, Australia, 2012.

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