6.1 Information on local decision making and Barcelona’s most important street, the Avinguda Diagonal. eGovernment And video recordings of the City Council’s meetings as well as documents pertaining to them are uploaded to the Decidim. Within the studies of different smart cities that we have Barcelona platform. Citizens can participate in some projects consulted, we have seen many egovernment initiatives. by sharing their ideas, feedback, and remarks. Across the cities, the primary aims are to offer a paperless administration model, facilitate administration processes, In Barcelona, participation is at the heart of the process of increase accessibility, and make local decisions transparent. building a smart city: In Barcelona, various governance-related projects have been • Fab Labs are classrooms where citizens can learn about the launched by the City Council, including (Ajuntament Barcelona, principles of digital technologies and participate in the smart 2020): city project; • eSignaturais a system for signing official documents • 22@Barcelona is a unique space designed to attract startups digitally. and innovators to develop new technologies that leverage • eContracteallows all information and documentation the data produced by the city’s extensive IoT infrastructure; pertaining to government contracts to be downloaded and • Cisco Barcelona Co-Innovation Center is a significant uploaded electronically; bids can be submitted online. technology partner behind much of Barcelona’s • eDocument lets citizens generate, store, access, preserve, infrastructure. It collaborates closely with many actors (for and retain all electronic documents generated by the city example, accelerators, developers, universities, the Catalan and those contributed by citizens and businesses. government, the City Council) to develop new business •ePagament allows residents to make electronic payments, models and technological solutions; including those corresponding to taxes, fees, charges, and • Decidim.Barcelona is a participatory democracy platform fines imposed by the City of Barcelona. that allows Barcelona’s citizens to view and discuss • eRegistre allows citizens to conduct municipal procedures proposals made by the City Council. Citizens also have the such as amending records in legal registers. facility to submit requests. Decidim is being used to create • eNotificació allows the government to issue notifications in Barcelona’s government agenda, with over 70 percent an electronic format. of suggestions coming directly from over forty thousand participating citizens (Ajuntament Barcelona, 2020). All these digital tools provided by Barcelona City Council help residents to access important information safely and allow Barcelona was one of the world’s first cities to have a public them to be aware of different projects that are being undertaken network of fab labs. Citizens appear to play a vital role in the within the city. The facilitation of access to records is a crucial city’s development and have many options to participate in aspect of the governance model of Barcelona and other smart changes at grassroots levels. cities, since it helps to ensure transparency and facilitate bureaucratic processes. 6.3 Corruption among city officials The city’s Mobile Digital Identity system allows citizens to Corruption is an issue in Spain. Some initiatives have safely and remotely log into these tools from their smartphone. therefore been implemented in Barcelona to reduce residents’ Moreover, the city has equipped police officers in Barcelona perception of corruption. For example, Xnet is an anonymous with a PDA (personal digital assistant), allowing them to report anticorruption complaint facility that encourages citizens to incidents and make real-time decisions. denounce corruption in Barcelona (Ajuntament Barcelona, 2020) 6.2 Citizens’ participation 7. Data management Informing residents in Barcelona about municipal decisions and local actions is essential. And their participation is even more In Barcelona, as part of a larger policy to address global warming fundamental when it comes to ensuring the development of and find relevant solutions to the main issues that the city faces, solutions that would improve their quality of life. In Barcelona, the City Council has created an ambitious digital transformation the Participation Consulta Ciudadana Diagonal (PCCD) is a journey that centers on digital participation (citizens), digital program that uses general advices for the transformation of innovation (startups), and digital empowerment (decentralization). 102 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021