Euro petition review evaluation

EuroPetition
Project Review

Evaluation Report

Peter Cruickshank
Edinburgh Napier University

eParticipation through Petitioning in Europe

Evaluation requirements

• That the EuroPetition platform does address use of ePetitions in the Legislative
decision making processes and eParticipation needs of local government in various
contexts at local, regional, national and European level

• That the assumptions in the initial viability plan are reasonable to sustain the
service in the various contexts.

• That the service can be delivered in multiple contexts and languages across
Europe on an interoperable operational basis.

• That alternative solutions and services are accommodated

• The legislative participation impact of EuroPetition, including its political impact and
affect on policy-making processes, its impact on cross-border cooperation between
citizens, and its relationship to wider aspects of e-governance

• User Engagement Report, documenting user engagement for identified user groups

F
2inal Project Review www.EuroPetition.eu

Evaluation work

Element Source of data Status
Baseline data Online survey tool Covered in interim review + report
hosted by PI
Application installation & training Questionnaires to Covered in interim review + report
Pilot Sites
Viewership and website behaviour PI Database analysis
statistics, including use of Web2.0 tools

Online Expectation & Perception Online survey tool Data gathered
Questionnaires hosted by PI
•Petitioners
•Citizens
Focus groups with citizens and petitioners Pilot sites Sweden, Spain, (Netherlands), England
Market survey and pricing questionnaire Pilot sites, MAC Review of viability report
Data from participating officers and Pilot sites, MAC/PI Review of viability report
members

Final Project Review www.EuroPetition.eu
4

Other outputs

• Refined model of e-petitioning process

• Papers on self-efficacy and the role of the lurker

• Supported process of publishing to OSOR.eu as EUPL-
licensed open source application

• Data standard for e-petitions

• Engaged with dialog on ECI and clarifying process

5

Evaluation process

User Design &
Install &
Requirements Develop Live running
Operate
& Service Spec Service

Dialogue to build Validate system Data Final data
data gathering into meets eval gathering, collection
system objectives responding
to issues

Establish Baseline & Ongoing Evaluation & Final
Develop Evaluation Plan monitoring of pilots Evaluation

Baseline survey (authority-held data) Interviews
‘exit’ surveys
Baseline survey (of citizens) Database analysis
Debate statistics
Lit review System data
Scenario-testing workshops Partner monitoring data
Formative Summative

6

How the petitioning process can
support engagement

Initiation & Input & Submis- Decision,
Acceptance Dialogue sion Feedback
• Agree wording • Collect • Dialogue with & •Outcome
Feedback to/
of petition signatures Petitioner from Petitioner
• Refer on/ up- • Manage linked • Preparation of • Dissemination of
ward if relevant resources reports outcome

Opportunity to
sign a petition

Signing a petition is one of the smallest possible steps in active e-participation

7

Theoretical background: Self Efficacy
Experience of the process matters

Positive and negative
reinforcement from previous
experiences

Self
Efficacy

Anxiety

Outcome
expectations
(Performance)

Affect Usage

Outcome
expectations
(Personal) Adapted from Compeau & Higgins 1999

11

Acceptance questions
Initial responses

Installation &
Customisation Training
• Generally smooth • Training sessions useful
– Close cooperation with – Well adapted in Spain
developer – Timing
• Needs
– Familiarity with ‘petition’ as
• Issues a process (eg Spain)
– Localisation process • Cultural issue
– Documentation – Good customer service
– Security, verification of skills
signatures – Will be continuing learning
process

14

Data analysis

17

Baseline survey
Mobile computing to access internet

18

Total petitions and time to accept

19

Daily signature counts by cluster

20

Cumulative signature counts

21

Signatures on Europetitions

22

Uptake of EuroPetitions by country

23

Focus group
findings

24

Theme: Privacy & Identity

• Use of identification infrastructure
– Eg provided by banks (risks?) or official national infrastructures
• Worry over retention of signatures
– And who would monitor them?
• Need to have more clarity over what is done with the
data and why it is gathered
– Does as much info have to be gathered to sign a petition?
• Fake signatures not felt to be an issue
– ECI does need identification process

25

Findings: Clarity of process

• Generally clear for both petitioners and signatories
– Though some confusion with the details

• Some usability and accessibility issues

• Group affiliations should be transparent

• Expectations of speed need to be managed
– Linked to need to communicate updates

26

Role of clusters and Trans EU
campaigns

• Interest is mostly with local issues, less with EU
– Missing central government step is obvious gap
• Need for flexible clustering model

• Need long term promotion of petitioning

• Need to support links between petitioners in different
clusters

• Length of Euro-process means more effort on
maintaining communication

27

Recommendations: European
Parliament

• Online petitions system required by the EP’s rules
– Meets the EP’s specification for an online petitioning system
• A mechanism for formally communicating this fact to the Petitions
Committee should be found.
• Next step: commitment from the EP as an institution
– From the Secretariat as well as MEPs to ensure that petitioners
are supported in
• wording the petition correctly
• identifying more appropriate targets for their action
– The clear benefit for the Committee will be the reduced
number of irrelevant or out of scope petitions they reject
– currently over half
– Need to support local partners in this work

28

Findings & challenges

Service Project Stakeholders

• Cross-border • Importance for the • Engagement by
nature of citizens of a clean local authorities
Europetitions and clear and the need for
demonstrated conclusion to the ownership by local
• Petitions can project decision maker
generally be closed • Publicity and • Impact of limited
after 100 days communicating the budgets
• Integration with relationship • The need for
third party system between local and transparency and
is possible Euro-petitions clarity of process
• Demonstration of • Gathering research • Privacy and the
influence on data from third collection and use
decision making party systems of signature data

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Conclusion

• ePetitions do provide the first easy step to proactive eParticipation
• EuroPetition demonstrated a best practice e-Service for local, national &
European petitions
– Could provide a validated online platform & service for ECI procedures.
– Very active local ePetitioning…
• EuroPetition helped connect European citizens with the
European Parliament & Commission
– Raised awareness of EU Citizens’ ability/right to petition
– Improved the quality & relevance of petitions to the
European Parliament through collaboration & moderation
– Input to the ECI online implementation procedures.
• Promoted the concept of epetitions & europetitions to
widen citizen participation & address democratic deficit across the EU

31

Future work…

• Technical challenges
– Verification – location/cross-border signing & checking
– Security / tamper proofing … eg PKI
– Data standards / Data sharing / APIs

• Trans-EU, trans-regional networking
– New partners
– Linking to other existing petitioning systems
– Transferable petitions / linking petitions across regions

• Underlying concepts: citizenship & identity

32

European Citizens Initiative

What does done and learned

33

ECI: What we did

• Direct discussions with the responsible Commission
officials
• Groups such as the ECI Board and the ECI campaign
• General education and discussion through blogging and
presentation at practitioner groups such as PEP-NET etc
– to create a common understanding of the implication for
system requirements of the Regulation as it was drafted.
• Our work included the visualisation of the ECI process
(highlighting areas of complexity) and the security
implications of the draft Regulation…

34

Journey of an ECI signature

Spam checks   
CAPTCHA etc
Signature

100% or sample based
records

By National Authorities
Record
Identity signature

Validation
 Certified,
First line verification
tamper-proof
records

Verification

Storage
Handwritten Confirmation

Secure
Other
Signature email methods

Certification
Authority National Identity
eg Verisign, Database(s)
EuroPKI

Final Project Review
35

National
Organiser e-ECI system Competent European

ECI Process
provider Authorities Commission
Think of subject for
ECI What is a Give
Find online ECI
system? certification
Obtain certification
Log Rejection reason

system How is it Record on system
Formal & informal
approved?processes agree’t By
Certificate Ref
Submit ECI and Basic Approval of wording
name service
provider whom? of ECI

ECI number, admin access OK

Set up ECI
Configure online Translations
(multilingual)
system
To
Commission
Collect paper Collect e-signatures ?
Advanced e-
signatures
signatures

Approx 100,000 signatures Confirm wording
acceptable
Target not reached

Target reached (in time)?

Collate signatures by Collate e-signatures
country etc by country etc Validate signatures
according to
national practice

Verify submission
Collate certificates conditions met
& submit to
Commission
YES

Destroy records
Into legislative / policy
within one
process
month

36
www.EuroPetition.eu

National
Organiser e-ECI system Competent European

ECI Process
provider Authorities Commission
Think of subject for
ECI Give
certification Log Rejection reason
Find online ECI Obtain certification
system
Record on system
Certificate Ref Formal & informal
Submit ECI and agree’t processes Basic Approval of wording
name service of ECI
provider
Will thenumber, admin access
ECI EC allow OK

Set up ECI unofficial
translations?
(multilingual) Configure online Translations
system
To

Collect paper
What can be
Collect e-signatures
Commission
?
used from e-
Advanced e-
signatures
signatures

Approx 100,000 signatures petitioning Confirm wording
systems?
Target not reached
acceptable

Target reached (in time)?

Collate signatures by Collate e-signatures
country etc by country etc Validate signatures
according to
national practice

Verify submission
Collate certificates
& submit to
How to audit conditions met

Commission
signatures? YES

Destroy records
Into legislative / policy
within one
process
month

37
www.EuroPetition.eu

Feedback on draft Regulation

• Copies of certificates: need for electronic form on
– Need to check by secured page hosted by the Commission
– Otherwise it would be simple for a fake ECI campaign to merely post a webpage on its site
claiming that it’s an official campaign.
• Open source software
– Maintenance of code once issued
– Use of the EUPL (www.osor.eu/eupl) and OSOR.eu
• Certification of online systems
– Online service providers may be separate from campaigning organisation
• Required technical features
– Permissible to use a system that has already been certified?
– Compliance with Data Protection Directive and its successors
• “Proof that citizen has only signed once”
– Virtually impossible to prove without national identity numbers
– A (statistical/sample based) process would give adequate assurance
• Statements of support
– Use of structured (XML) form for reuse, rather than thousands of PDFs
• Establishment of standard
– Link to work carried out in England last year to define data standards for recording petition
– Allow for regular updates and stakeholder involvement in their definition

38

Thank You


39

eParticipation through Petitioning in Europe

Euro petition review evaluation

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