Wired Hong Kong doesn't understand the true value of information
Waltraut Ritter says lack of access to public data hurts competitiveness
Is Hong Kong a much less developed information society than officials would have us believe? The two recent reports by the Ombudsman about the access to information regime and public records management should be taken as a serious warning.
The quality of any records management system decides whether citizens trust or doubt government data. Interestingly, the Ombudsman's reports reveal a completely different picture of where Hong Kong stands compared with the government's Digital 21 strategy, its blueprint for information and communications technology development. The 2014 update is titled "Smarter Hong Kong, Smarter Living".
The quality of any records management system decides whether citizens trust or doubt government data
The blueprint says Hong Kong ranks highly in technological infrastructure such as fast broadband connectivity, mobile phone penetration and general availability of information.
The latest version introduces the concept of "openness by default", meaning that all information produced by public agencies should be machine-readable, accessible and free.
Why the disconnect between the aspirations of the Digital 21 strategy advocated by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau and the backwardness of the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau handling the code on access to information? It seems the two bureaus are not collaborating and have completely different views on the role of information in Hong Kong's social and economic development.
Based on various international rankings monitoring the knowledge economy, Hong Kong consistently ranks high on information technology, but low on access to, and transparency of, government information.