Civic Technologies

Share Your Thoughts! We’re opening the conversation on integrity and anti-corruption in new tech to our community. Each week we’ll explore one of the 2019 OECD Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum themes and want to hear what you think of the challenges and opportunities of integrity in *Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Big data analytics, and Civic technologies.

Civic Technologies are enabling greater participation in government and assisting them in delivering public services. This includes crowdfunding platforms, crowd sourced data collection, freedom of information tools, and open data and publishing platforms.

What are the opportunities of civic tech?

• With their low entry barriers and global reach, civic technologies have reduced information asymmetries between citizens and governments, and enhanced citizen knowledge and engagement in anti-corruption.
• Citizens leverage information and communication technology (ICT) to spot potential irregularities in public services, ask questions about complicated bureaucratic processes, and generate and disseminate information on abuse in the public sector.[1] For example, e-government services allow citizens to track the progress of the bureaucratic procedures they initiated online and audit the process.
• Open data platforms grant political and public institutions greater insight into one another’s operations, thereby increasing their capacity to hold one another accountable.[2]

What are the challenges of civic tech?

• Digital exclusion of some citizens may inhibit their making use of civic technologies for anti-corruption and integrity.[3]
• Ensuring consistent, reliable, and up-to-date information on open data and transparency platforms, and their proper management for easy access by the public will require considerable work.
• Greater exposure to corruption with open data may demobilise citizens rather than enhance accountability.[4]
• Open data and transparency portals allow citizens to access government data that can expose corrupt behaviour.[1]

·      Online reporting and disclosure systems on political financing allow citizens to see donations to political parties and their annual financial reports, and to campaign for finance reporting for both parties and candidates.[2]

·      Online lobbying registries enable policy makers, companies and the public to see what interests are being pursued, by whom and with which budgets, which can help ensure a level playing field.

• Mobile applications provide whistleblowers a safe and anonymous channel to communicate unlawful and unethical activity they encounter at their work place.
• Open contracting platforms provide practitioners and citizens with high-quality data, enabling them to find evidence of corruption and abuse in government contracts.

*View the other tech topics at https://oe.cd/2vd

[1] OECD, 2017b

[2] IDEA, 2017d.

[1]GIZ, 2018

[2] Bauhr and Grimes, 2014

[3] Mayo and Steinberg, 2007

[4] Bauhr and Grimes, 2014

[5] OECD, 2017b

[6] IDEA, 2017