Our country is undergoing an unprecedented process of elaboration of a new Constitution. Unpublished, because for the first time our Constitution will be drafted by elected representatives and not by a designated elite. Also unprecedented for being equal, and having seats reserved for representatives of indigenous peoples. Finally, it will be the first post-pandemic Constitution in the world and we have the opportunity to capture the experience of this period that is not over yet.
One of the concerns of the Constituent Convention has been to establish citizen participation mechanisms that allow the various members of civil society to present points of view and background that the conventional ones could take into account when drafting the proposal for a new Constitution . One of these mechanisms is the Digital Platform for Popular Participation. Those popular initiatives that achieve at least 15,000 supports will be discussed in the Convention as if they had been presented by a conventional party. In no case does this mean that they will vote favorably.
A total of more than 2,000 initiatives were presented and as of the date of this publication, at least 15 (just over 0.7%) have already achieved minimal support, most of them sponsored by organized groups that had been promoting their initiatives before.
Not with my money–Defend your pension savings, Cannabis to the Constitution now: For the right to free development of personality, personal sovereignty and well-being', It will be Law: popular initiative to support abortion, Religious denominations want Contribute to the Constitutional Convention: text on religious freedom and conscience in the new Constitution, Right to Life and Free right to private property, Victims first, Autonomous Central Bank, Right to education, right and preferential duty of parents and freedom of education, Popular initiative for a free and diverse education, Nationalization of large mining, copper, lithium and gold companies, New regions of Chiloé and Aconcagua, A feminist education for Chile: Secular, public and non sexist, #Nosonmuebles – Incorporation of animals in the Constitution and For water, the rights of nature and glaciers.
The computing platform has some usability problems and a bigger problem in the sense that many initiatives that share a purpose, compete and divide the votes. When someone presents a new initiative, the system does not display similar initiatives already presented, a functionality that with current technology is easy to implement. Another solution to resolve this would have been to separate the process into two stages, a first aimed at presenting initiatives followed by internal work to consolidate similar initiatives and then open the voting process. In any case, and despite the problems, this represents a huge advance in terms of participation.
In the domain of digital, 44 initiatives were submitted, which can be classified into the following categories (note: a few initiatives were classified in more than one theme):
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| Type of initiative | Number of initiatives |
| Digital rights (Access, protection of personal data, Open Data, IA) | 22 |
| Digital democracy: electronic voting and participation | 12 |
| Sanction for false news | < td width="85">5|
| Digital Notary | 3 |
| Free software | 2 |
| Regulate/promote entrepreneurship Digital | 1 |
| State property of cyberspace | 1 |
In other words, most of the initiatives point to the consecration in the Fundamental Charter of a series of digital rights as fundamental rights. Not surprisingly, the most requested right is Internet access and digital literacy, that is, the purpose is to reduce the digital divide. Secondly, the privacy and protection of personal data refers to a latent concern. The right to access public data (in some cases it is called open data), the right to digital identity, as well as the protection of traditional rights, in the digital world (copyright, freedom of expression) are others. claimed rights. Finally, a couple of initiatives refer to including regulation of Artificial Intelligence, particularly the transparency of algorithms.
The second most important group of initiatives points to the use of digital technologies to improve the quality of democracy and citizen participation, through electronic voting, citizen participation and control of the authorities. They are found mostly in the category “on Political System, Government, Legislative Power and Electoral System”.
The third set of proposals aims to penalize those who propagate or disseminate false, discriminatory or insulting news. Then the other initiatives are divided into:
The only two initiatives that have exceeded one thousand votes are:
We think that an in-depth analysis of the set of initiatives, carried out by thematic specialists, would add a lot of value to the work of the Convention, a richness much greater than the mere selection of the initiatives with the greatest citizen support. Today there are technological tools that could facilitate this analysis.
Finally, it is important to highlight that everyone must also have the right not to participate in the digital world and therefore mechanisms must be provided to access all citizen rights, particularly when they do not have internet access.
Ricardo Baeza Yates and Didier de Saint Pierre Ricardo Baeza Yates has a PhD in Computer Science; professor at the Institute for Experiential Artificial Intelligence at Northeastern University (Silicon Valley campus), Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and the University of Chile; member of the DATA Lab of the Khoury College of Computer Sciences and of the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence of the Spanish government. Didier de Saint Pierre is a Civil Engineer in Computing; specialist in Strategic Management of Information Services and in Digital Transformation of organizations.