Crowdsourcing Land Rights, Restrictions and Responsibilities

Land is an important economic asset and sustains the livelihoods of many; community identity, history and culture also have their roots in land. Communities, therefore, can readily mobilise around land issues, making land a... [ view full abstract ]

Land is an important economic asset and sustains the livelihoods of many; community identity, history and culture also have their roots in land. Communities, therefore, can readily mobilise around land issues, making land a central object of conflict and divergence. According to the UN, the challenges associated with preventing, managing and resolving natural resources and land issues may well come to define global peace and security in the 21st century. In this context, almost only 1/6 of the world’s land and property rights, restrictions and responsibilities (RRRs) are registered, leaving majority of the population vulnerable in economic hardship, social instability and environmental challenges.

This paper aims to investigate a novel approach building on the potential of crowdsourcing systems as citizen centred and economical approaches in establishing and maintaining land registries with particular attention to information gaps about land and property RRRs. In addressing this aim, the paper discusses the following questions:
1: What types of rights, restrictions and responsibilities can be crowdsourced? It identifies different types of RRRs in the continuum and the possibility of crowdsourcing them.
2: What contributions can the crowd make? It identifies seven potential areas in which crowdsourcing can help in the realisation of a land registry.
3: How to recruit and retain the crowd? It addresses what incentives the system can provide to the crowd to contribute in building the registry.
4: How to evaluate users and their contributions? It addresses the criticism that always has existed for crowdsourced data and that is the quality and integrity of the crowd contribution.

Addressing the four key questions the paper compiles principles that are required for establishing, maintaining and improving land registration system that is sourced by the crowd. These principles describe the environment and circumstances that are required for crowd sourcing land rights, restrictions and responsibilities.