Participative Decision-Making and Gamification: The Case of «Civic Points»

Although games have always been part of human history (from children’s plays to gambling), only recently they have been introduced in the public sphere as a tool to stimulate aggregative social processes. However, gamifi cation of participative decision-making, enabled by the use ìof ICTs and the exploitation of personal data, raises some concerns, in particular the protection of privacy and fundamental freedoms of citizens. In this contribution, after a theoretical overview, we tackle such questions, describing a participatory model which allows to minimize the risks of abuses by public authorities while maximizing the potential benefit, especially in local communities.