Identification in e-participation: Between quality of identification data and participation threshold

Abstract

E-participation projects have to consider a low participation threshold while maintaining security and data quality standards. While users often perceive complex regulations and logins as hurdles for participation, providers of solutions want to avoid misuse and in some cases have identified the participants uniquely. Not all levels of e-participation require the same quality of identification and authentication to produce reliable outcomes. Based on the first results of an Austrian e-participation project, the paper presents a model that tries to match these complex relations and examines which identification methods are seen as appropriate on which levels of e-participation based on the dimensions of quality of identification data and low participation threshold.