Civic Alert
DIALOGUE & INTERACTION
Civic Alert is a platform designed to facilitate communication between citizens and governments. Now that citizens can use her mobile application, he can immediately report issues in the city to authorities in three easy steps.
Short summary of the practice
Civic Alert is a platform designed to facilitate communication between citizens and governments. Now that citizens can use her mobile application, he can immediately report issues in the city to authorities in three easy steps.
Submit your photo, auto-geolocation, address, and select the category that the reported issue falls under.
After an issue is reported through the app, reporting and management of the relationship with authorities continues through Civic Alert’s call center, from which agents review, forward, and send formal reports to the appropriate authorities.
Goal of the practice
Share information more quickly with the authorities to make the city safer
Target group
All citizens
Number of participants: Unlimited
Age of participants: Adults, 18+
Materials
- Internet access
- Phone
- Camera
Method settings
The tool was developed and is used in Romania only.
Preparation
Preparation 1-2 hours
Step by step guide
Whenever citizens want to submit any notification, complaint, petition, proposal or initiative related to the civic space and the public domain, it is possible to do this in less than 30 seconds, following three simple steps:
- Photography – take a representative picture for your problem and upload it to the application;
- Geolocation – specify the address where your problem is located: automatic location can be used or the address can be entered manually;
- Category – select the category in which your problem falls, having several options such as: streets and street lighting, water and sewerage, road traffic and parking, garbage and vandalism, parks and green spaces, public transport, etc.
Expected output
Rapid complaint resolution.
DOs, DONTs and ethical considerations of the method
DOs of the method:
- When sharing a complaint, make sure that the photo shows the entire situation so as not to bias the information.
- Explain the situation clearly.
DONTs of the method:
- Avoid adding the complaint several times.
- Do not add racist complaints.
Change the method brings to the communities
The application can be installed on Android or IOs and citizens can submit their complaint and, according to the domain it falls it, they will be shown on the map and re-directed to the right authority.
Adaptation/Application of the method
This case study on the management of Romania’s heritage, like other case studies on the environment (such as pollution or waste management), allows NGOs and interested individuals to contribute to the use and development of an information mapping platform. Since the results are not public, we cannot know how effective it was and what is the level of difficulty of developing such an application solution. It is certain that the user must have some basic knowledge of IT in order to develop the part of the solution that he wants to achieve. In conclusion, it is difficult to quantify what changes have occurred following the use of these solutions. A separate research will have to be carried out, possibly through an interview, with those who applied to Civic Labs, for example the application regarding the management of the heritage. And thus, seen with them what is their level of achievement and satisfaction after using the platform.
Credit, References, and Resources
Link to the tool (facebook) – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100070001954424
Photo sources: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100070001954424, date: 13.09.2023
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