The document discusses citizens' engagement platforms implemented by Greek municipalities and issues around open data and interoperability. It summarizes two existing municipal platforms in Athens and Heraklion that allow citizens to submit requests but do not fully implement open data standards. The platforms could be improved by linking user accounts to social media, personalizing services, and making more data openly available while ensuring privacy and security. A unified approach across municipalities is needed to achieve true interoperability and improve citizen services. Politicians and bureaucrats must support transparency and public participation for open governance to succeed.

1. Greek Municipalities and Citizens’ Engagement. The case for implementing a
Citizens’ interoperability through platforms.
Photis Zygoulis: E gov Coordinator at the Municipality of Iraklio Attikis Greece
fotiszygoulis@gmail.com
Rania Tsopana : Public relations Supervisor at the Municipality of Nea Ionia Attikis
Greece
raniaaa_t@yahoo.gr
Key words: public participation, citizens’s portal, open data, citizens’s smart card.
Abstract: The implementation of e-governance in local government goes through the
openness that aims to serve the citizen. The municipalities in Greece have set up
portals for communication between them and the citizens. These Portals have
common characteristics that are holding back the development of a local policy
towards openness and transparency.
1. What is open data and e-government. Legislation in Greece and Europe.
Public open data refers to data that can be used, reused and redistributed. Open
data features are:
• Openness
• Availability
• Reuse and Redistribution
• Inclusive participation
Public authorities in Greece allow the publication of a few information on public
portals but this information cannot be used by citizens. These technologies allow the
provision of data by governments to their citizens but this does not always mean
that these governments reflect a concept of open governance. The policy of open
government is one thing different from a policy which contains only technologies of
open data. Authoritarian states demonstrate public open data policies without
implying anything about their real policy. Many times the openness is a cover for
corruption and opacity.
Open data are related to accountability and inclusiveness. The need for more good
and open governance is the result of lack of trust in public institutions and lack of
effectiveness of governments. Public inclusiveness through consultation legitimizes
elements of state policy.
In Greece the tradition in the public sector, speaking for hierarchy and bureaucracy,
are a serious obstacle towards the development of a new administrative model
based on open government. There is a strong incompatibility between e-gov
applications and governance. In Greece the recently issued Presidential Decree No
28 / 03.23.2015 on the access to public documents and records contains a lot of legal

2. information concerning open data usability. In Chapter III, Article 21 defines what is
meant by:
• Personal data
• Sensitive data
• Processing of personal data
• Interface
• Controller
• Third
• Consent of the subject whose data is being processed
Article 28 defines the right of access to personal data. Notification concerning third
parties of any rectification or erasure of all data signifies an obligation of the data
controller. European policy on open data in particular regarding their use in the
economy is concentrated in COM (2014) 442 final, according to which: data is a
reinterpretable representation of information in a formalized manner, suitable for
communication, interpretation or processing. EU should be more competitive in this
area should it want to succeed the Agenda 2020 reforms. EU should rapidly conclude
the legislative processes on the reform of the data protection framework, network
and information security and support exchange and cooperation between the
relevant enforcement authorities.
In Greece during the recent years a lot of data disclosure efforts have been carried
out on electronic platforms, state or local. The data on these platforms have been
categorized lastly.
2. Brief reference to 2 portals and their functions. Description of the problems
these Best Practices are addressing.
• Gov.e-irakleio.gr
• Cityofathens.gr/khe/crm
These two citizen's electronic service platforms were selected because they
represent platforms both at a medium and a large municipality in Attica.
• Gov.e-irakleio.gr
The first platform is connected to the official website of the municipality Heraklion
Attica (www.iraklio.gr). It can be used both by citizens and officials. Identification
and authentication of users is connected with their email. Citizens do not have to
visit the town hall with their identity to verify their application or registration. This
platform accepts two streams: one coming from outside the municipality towards
the interior environment and one that is uniting a service unit to another service unit
inside the municipality. The second flow is predominantly governmental service. The
first flow concerns the citizens and employees of the town hall. The requests masks
of the citizens and the officials have classifications depending on the subject,
department, even the population group of the geographical-boundaries of the town
set up automatically depending on the demands. The platform is connected to gis
(gis.iraklio.gr) of the municipality. The administrator has authority throughout the
whole system and he/she can extract statistics which are based on measurable
indicators. A disadvantage of this platform is focused on the lack of a link between
with the applicant's account on social networks and the platform itself. Another
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3. disadvantage is the data requests which is not yet published data on environment
openness.
• Cityofathens.gr/khe/crm
The second platform is connected to the official website of the municipality of
Athens. It can be used both by citizens and officials. Here the identification and
authentication of users can be accumulated through their email and (for a single
time) the physical presence of users at one of the civil service points in the city of
Athens. The same concept as in gov.e-irakleio.gr platform applies here to internal
procedures reflected in the cityofathens platform. The platform is connected to the
gis of the municipality.
On both platforms an effort has been made focused on a) the categorization of
requests and b) the connection of each request to a specific process owner of the
municipal service. The process owner holds a -gate like- position in the organization
chart of the municipality and serves as the correspondent of the system for both
citizens and employees. This app has a reengineering effect inside the Greek local
public service through IT implementation.
These two platforms are not yet able to personalize service to citizens by linking the
accounts with social networks or through categorizing those being served under
request-quality-geographical indicators.
Indicators
Request Environment Educatio
n
Health economy
Quality Service Unit
Settlement
Time
Geographical Origin Request
These two platforms serving the following demands:
 Environment
 Cleanliness
 Roads
 Lighting
 Education
 Health
 Licensing shops
Requests can be accordingly extended civil life events.
3. Type open data exist or do not exist at both portals. Scenarios illustrating
problems. Solutions
Categorization Gov.e-
irakleio.gr
Cityofathens.gr
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4. Metadata No info No info
Data Access Limited Limited
Data Formats Open
Source
Open Source —
Data Licenses PDF
readable
PDF readable —
Data Quality No info No info —
Data Sensitive There is
no policy
There is no
policy
Data Identification Unique re-
use
internally
Unique re-
use internally
We can see that these two platforms have not been given an opportunity for the
openness. This apparently occurs because the Greek local policy pursues only the
legal use of data for internal purposes of the public services. It seems that these
platforms which have been built to serve the citizen actually serve only the services.
An one and only possibility which exists for these platforms may involve public
access to the requesting citizen statistical data. This data may include:
 Dispersion timeframe of a service request
 Correlation of unique request with other requests
 Relation of the profile request to other entities (profiles of persons) with similar
requests
The (applicant / citizen profile - oriented ) platforms can be connected to social
networks and specific applicant-depended formed groups with common geo-
characteristics. These features can be captured on a map gis
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5. Profile:
Data:
Metadata:
Connection:
The profile of each user-citizen applicant can be connected with a number
corresponding to identification card (smart card). This card can be used instead of an
authentication for citizen transactions.
4. Intended outcome of a policy Citizens' Engagement in these platforms.
Relationship to PSI directive. Possible solutions for the implementation of
the new code in Greece.
Under the Directive PSI many elements that should be embedded in these platforms
are not embedded.
Benefit to the knowledge economy NO
Promoting transparency and accountability NO
Minimum harmonization to determine what public data are available for re-use NO
Personal Data/privacy YES
Right to exploit the documents NO
Licenses YES
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6. This means that both platforms have not been tied up clearly to European standards
and they cannot be the scope of interoperability concerning openness of data in the
public space.
The Citizens' Engagement even it is implemented through the application of social
networks, it needs further safeguards regarding subjects as security, privacy and
accessibility.
By simply implementing a user authentication process via a smart card it is unlikely
to solve significant problems such as the adaptation to European directive and a
personalization of service.
The new Greek code of public access to public documents and records which came
into force on March 23, 2015 in Greece is in this direction. In this Code unfortunately
there are not included legal responsibilities attached to municipalities so as they can
have access to tax information. This is very important because it can support Greek
Municipalities to identify sources of repayment of their claims.
5. Proposals for an integration between portals inside Greek municipalities.
Categorization of information.
In Greece there are 2000 governmental services and 10000 governmental "Points of
Service" in total. These governmental entities are not communicating between each
other. We have the following problems:
 Legal and Organizational interoperability
 Semantic interoperability
 Technical interoperability
 Citizen Engagement Interoperability
Since there is no total interoperability we cannot speak for an integrated citizen
service, continuous and reliable. These two platforms are an example of
administrative-technical incompatibility. Each Municipality in Greece describes and
implements its own action plan without caring for possible communication between
other Municipalities’ applications. The negative consequence is the citizen service
failure referring to authentication by using a smart card which will be accepted by all
public bodies during all the aspects-events of a person’s life.
National Interoperability Framework operates in Greece. This consists of:
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Service Portals Standards
Government Systems
Architecture
Electronic ID Standards
Interoperability Standards

7. This framework is not implemented through unification between all the portals of
Greek municipalities. The legal status at this point is not sufficient.
In our opinion a prerequisite for unification with the aim of interoperability is the
creation of a digital certificate which makes safe and secret every transaction
between the citizen and public services. The challenges are:
o Connecting citizens and government
o Connection business and government
o Ensuring interoperability of systems
o Connecting and simplifying laws
Technology does not produce value for citizens-customers. A proposal tabulation of
data in primary portals could be the following:
Municipality’s Portal for Citizen
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8. Tables with data
Categories Certificates SMEs
Licenses
Taxes Education Health
Entities Entities Entities Entities Entities Entities
Entities Entities Entities Entities Entities Entities
Γάμμα Όμικρον
Δέλτα Πι
Έψιλον Ρο
Ζήτα Σίγμα
Ήτα Ταυ
Θήτα Ύψιλον
Γιώτα Φι
Κάπα Χι
Λάμδα Ψι
Μι Ωμέγα
In real time a citizen can see the flow of hers/his request inside the municipality’ s
platform only by registering hers authenticated profile through social media account.
6. The role of politicians and bureaucrats to transparency and inclusiveness.
In democracy the issue of transparency and inclusivity determines the quality of
democracy. In Greece the political design is reduced to a policy management
without sufficient transparency which is often depended on a grid of political and
economic interests of a local oligarchy.
In front of such a situation, citizens in Greece, averse politics and come (when they
do) only to the polls to exercise their right to vote and to legitimize a government.
The Kantian connection between the political and moral puts the disclosure of
political actions. The publication may, under certain conditions, lead to transparency.
The legitimacy of a political class passes through the active participation by citizens
in decision-making processes. The public debate about rational arguments comes
only with truly open standards of data. This participation of citizens can contribute to
a collective intelligence. Democracy is in decline today. Transparency, corruption,
secrecy in the receiving areas of high political decisions explain the delegitimation of
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Public
Consultation
Platforms
Main Site Gis App
Social media
Authentication
E-platforms for
citizens

9. democracy. Especially in Greece nowadays where the economic crisis has changed
everything. Therefore, the importance of the open data in public open portals is
tremendous. Open data portals should aim at:
• Transparency and Accountability-----Social Monitoring & Benchmarking
• Information
• Participation-----------------------------Access to Info lowers the digital barriers
Barriers to implementing a policy of open data:
• Technology Formalism (reflect and not transform)
• Increasing Transparency VS Increasing Participation
Sometimes publicizing data does not mean a parallel reinforcing of institutional
structures.
Finally, government data is uniquely comprehensive, consistent, credible, relevant
and accessible and still protects confidentiality. For these reasons, open data
particularly local government data, can make local government more efficient,
interactive, transparent and accountable.
On these platforms we have seen, local governments have not made the big step
forward: to make their data openly. The challenges facing these administrations are
concerning:
• Designing a citizen - centric platform
• Advancing the mobility of these data
• Collaborating with other local -egov platforms
• Fostering Transparency
• Engage Citizens
These five goals are achievable under the European Union Agenda 2020. Time will
show whether there will be achieved.
7. References- Screenshots
okfn.gr/open-data/
www.e-gif.gov.gr
https://digitalgovernment.wordpress.com
Capitalizing on the Open Data Revolution, EMC Federal Summit, Washington D.C. 10/22/2014
Harlan Yu, The New Ambiguity of “Open Government”, UCLA 2012.
Stella Ladi, Political Changes for Greece of Tomorrow, Athens 2009.
The law on open data in Greece affects the law on citizenship card (smart citizens card)
“Open data” concerns re-use of information combining the power of technology and the knowledge
provided by data. European Commission, COM (2014) 442 final
Data on the Web Best Practices, W3C First Public Working Draft, 24-04-2015
www.Iraklio.gr, gis.iraklio.gr
http://www.w3.org/2013/shape-psi/wiki/Elements
www.eygep.gov.gr
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10. Figure 1. cityofathens.gr (citizens platform/ authentication registration mask)
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11. Figure 2. cityofathens.gr (citizens platform entering mask)
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12. Figure 3. cityofathens.gr (citizens platform elements registration mask)
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13. Figure 4. cityofathens.gr (citizens platform identity number for authentication of
citizens mask)
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14. Figure 5. gov.e-irakleio.gr (citizens platform administrator mask)
Figure 6. gov.e-irakleio.gr (citizens platform new task mask)
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15. Figure 7. gov.e-irakleio.gr (citizens platform statistics based on KPIs)
Figure 8. gov.e-irakleio.gr (citizens platform statistics)
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16. Figure 9. gov.e-irakleio.gr (citizens platform statistics)
8. Intended Audience: Data managers, Application Developers, Senior
Government Officials
9. Related Best Practices: http://www.e-trikala.gr/, http://opendatagortynia.gr/,
http://gis.thessaloniki.gr/
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