Context
This project positions the municipality of Paiporta as a pioneer in the implementation of a self-service terminal with facial recognition, which facilitates and accelerates citizens’ access to electronic public services. It represents a technological breakthrough funded by the Next Generation funds of the European Union and promoted through the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, under its Strategic Line No. 4: Digital Infrastructures. This innovative commitment to digital transformation incorporates Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), as well as the digitalisation of administrative procedures and the adaptation of their management to the use of digital tools.
Objectives
The project aims to respond in an inclusive and integrative manner to the economic and social needs of the public through improved delivery of electronic public services. The main objective of the project is to implement an easy-to-use and intuitive self-service terminal to streamline the management of the most common administrative procedures, while also facilitating access to city-related information on the ground floor of the town hall.
This project has contributed to the Municipality by streamlining bureaucratic processes thanks to the digitisation efforts that has reduced the time and workload needed to manage these tasks. The easy-to-learn and use interface allows citizens with low digital literacy such as the elderly to handle administrative procedures without requiring prior digital knowledge. It has also given a lifeline to the citizens affected by the DANA flooding, helping them regain access to services despite losing their personal devices.
Implementation
This project it is the first municipal self-service ATM with facial recognition, a first-of-its-kind in Spain’s local administration. Using a form of artificial intelligence (AI) running locally, it imitates the human capacity to recognise human faces and attempts to humanise ICT to improve technological processes. By transitioning to digital services, it also bridges the digital gap by offering electronic public services to non-digitally literate groups by removing technological barriers offering intuitive, offline, and self-guided processes. Also, to help an all-digital process, the use of paper has been reduced, making this project align with environmental sustainability goals and the EU’s green deal initiative.
There have been multiple groups involved with the project:
- the City Hall government team, present at meetings to transmit the progress to the Government of the City;
- the Area of Innovation, an in-house team of IT technicians in charge of the management, coordination and technical parts;
- the Director of the Citizen Services Office, essential for the implementation of the module’s software;
- the City Hall’s Treasury, managing payments and funding;
- the receptionist of the City Hall, guiding and helping the citizens in the use of the self-service ATM;
- the Communication Area, designing the advertising campaign.