Trust issues on crowd-sourcing methods for urban environmental monitoring

This paper explores trust related issues arising from the use of a crowd-sourcing method. Crowd-sourcing is a relatively new method that utilises modern technologies to gather, analyse and visualise specific “on-the-fly” data. The data is typically acquired through the employment of mobile technology, with each device running a bespoke application that captures the desired information. The resulting “crowd sourced” data is readily available and the corresponding maps produced can in turn, be used to support strategic planning and to facilitate overall, more informed decision-making. The purpose is to provide insights into this novel approach to data collection, aggregation and subsequent visualisation. Specifically, the focus centres upon issues of trust and security that are inherent not merely to the use of crowd sourced data capture itself, but also crucially, to the stewardship and usage of the resultant data sets within e-government settings. A novel community centric usage scenario is presented that seeks to show how issues of trust pervade the technology. Hence, both rewards and risks are revealed and we go on to outline a preliminary approach intended to support a trusted and reputable “crowdy” data architecture.