A Versatile, Secure and Privacy-Aware Tool for Online Participation

Abstract

Online participations have increased in recent years and various tools emerged to support participatory processes. However, often they support only one level of participation such as information, consultation or co-operation and definite security and privacy considerations seem to be not a priority. What is missing so far is a secure and flexible tool that can be used for multiple purposes and integrates security and privacy considerations from the beginning. In this paper, we propose a tool for online participation that supports multiple levels of participation, provides authentication with different electronic identities (eIDs), incorporates security and privacy by design and ensures interoperability to existing identity solutions. For example, with the use of different eIDs (if adequate to the level of participation), we expect to enable a low threshold for participation. Based on the aforementioned requirements, we expect to increase the trust between operators and participants in online participations in the long run.