Demo

Code for democratic guaranted and open collaboration

This is the social contract that all members of the Decidim community
are committed to follow.

By signing this Social Contract, any individual, institution or social
group of any kind, commits to fulfill the principles established here
when using, developing and participating in the community of Decidim.

Free software and open content

The code of the platform, along with the modules, libraries or any other
code that is developed for its functioning and deployment, will always
be Free Open Source Software with an Affero GPLv3 license or later
versions whenever the code is newly developed and with licenses that are
compatible with the above one when code re-used.

Likewise, the content, data, APIs and/or any other interfaces that are
deployed to interact with any type of user must follow open and
interoperable standards (ex. OpenID, RSS, OStatus, etc.), always tending
to maximize their integration with the most widely used open standards.

The data available through the platform, especially all data that can be
collected in a systematic way through scrappers or other techniques of
massive consultation, will be published and licensed under Open Data
Commons Open Database License, published under standardized and
accessible formats (such as CSV, JSON, etc.) and, whenever possible,
with tools that facilitate the analysis and visualization of data.

Transparency, traceability and integrity

The platform, and its current or future configuration, development,
deployment and use must ensure and maximize, at all times, the
transparency, traceability and integrity of documents, proposals,
debates, decisions, or any other object, mechanism or participatory
process.

By transparency we understand that all data related to all such
participatory mechanisms and processes are available for download,
analysis and treatment, following the most demanding standards and
formats to share information (accessibility, multi-format, etc.).

Transparency is a necessary condition for monitoring of participatory
processes and mechanisms, but should never, in any case, be applied for
the treatment of personal data or against the defense of the privacy of
the people participating in the platform.

We understand by traceability the ability to fully track backward
(past) and forward (future) what happened to the proposals, plans,
regulations, or any other object of participation or decision included
in a process or mechanism. The platform must at all times show how, why,
by whom and with what guarantees a certain type of object of a
participatory process was dismissed, approved or blocked.

We understand by integrity the authenticity of a specific content, and
ensuring that it has not been tampered with or altered without this
modification being clearly recorded and visibly verifiable and
auditable. The goal of integrity is to avoid manipulation of proposals
or results of participatory processes or mechanisms.

Equal opportunities and quality indicators

Alongside the guarantees previously defined, the platform promises to
ensure equal opportunities for all people, as well as for their
proposals or other contributions the platform might host. The platform
will offer equal starting opportunities to all participatory objects
(proposals, debates, etc.) for them to be viewed, discussed, commented,
evaluated or treated without discrimination of any kind. In this sense,
the digital identity of the users of the platform will always be
personal and not transferable, the verification that confers decision
rights on the platform should also be unique, and it is the
administrative entity in charge of the platform who should be
responsible for ensuring non-impersonation of a person or entity.

The platform should promote, with the aim of ensuring its democratic
quality, the use of quality indicators developed on the basis of the
data obtained from participatory processes, mechanism and user activity.
Sharing of the setting of the different components as well as open data
will be promoted for the definition of these indicators

Equality in political participation of citizens is one of the
fundamental principles of any democratic system and the platform, not
only has to ensure equal opportunities with respect to the uses and
functions, but also the access right. In this sense the entity in charge
of the platform assumes the commitment to promote actions that advance
in the direction of providing access and support to the platform for all
citizens alike universally Giving tools and resources appropriate to the
platform is available to anyone who wants to use.

Data confidentiality

The confidentiality and privacy of the personal data that people might
provide to participate in any of the functionalities and/or
possibilities of participation that the platform provides shall be
guaranteed at all times. In no case shall personal data be transferred
to third parties. Personal data will not be used beyond what is strictly
necessary for the purposes of user registration and improvements on the
usability of the platform. Whenever platform technology makes it
possible, the expression of political preferences or will in
decision-making processes shall remain inaccessible even for the
administrator of the platform or the server/s that host it.

Accountability and responsibility

A commitment to citizens shall be taken to respond to all queries and
contributions in the shortest time possible. A commitment shall also be
adopted to follow-up the results of participatory processes and to
respond to those demands which specifically request it. Finally, a
commitment shall be taken to study the incorporation of indicators to
monitor the participation processes once they are finalized, in order to
systematically evaluate its implementation.

Continuous improvement and inter-institutional collaboration

Mechanisms for periodic review and evaluation will be provided in order
to facilitate the continuous improvement of the platform.

Priority will be given to the collaboration and the exchange of
experiences between the institutions involved in the project, with the
aim to improve, fix and build new developments for the continuous
improvement of the platform.

In this sense, collaborative conditions and environments will be
facilitated when moving forward improvements that point to a common
benefit of the entire platform, enabling inter-agency coordination
mechanisms when necessary.