Preserving Digital Privacy in e-Participation Environments: Towards GDPR Compliance

Abstract

The application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016/679/EC, the Regulation for the protection of personal data, is a challenge and must be seen as an opportunity for the redesign of the systems that are being used for the processing of personal data. An unexplored area where systems are being used to collect and process personal data are the e-Participation environment. The latest generations of such environments refer to sociotechnical systems based on the exploitation of the increasing use of Social Media, by using them as valuable tools, able to provide answers and decision support in public policy formulation. This work explores the privacy requirements that GDPR imposes in such environments, contributing to the identification of challenges that e-Participation approaches have to deal with, with regard to privacy protection.