One-stop Hong Kong database portal planned by 2023 to ease information gathering and spur ‘smart city’ development

Officials seek to make painstaking searches for information easier through centralisation, but expert warns of privacy concerns and challenge in sharing

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Lands Department senior land surveyor Victor Ng describing plans for the map-based database. Photo: Roy Issa

Published: 9:05am, 21 Feb 2018Updated: 9:04am, 21 Feb 2018

For contractors planning to develop a piece of land in Hong Kong, it can be a nightmare trying to get hold of crucial data detailing what goes on underground.

Information such as the locations and numbers of subterranean cables sits in the hands of private electricity companies, while public water and drainage pipes are managed by the government and gas pipes are overseen by the city’s main energy supplier, Towngas.

But officials are hoping to shorten the painstaking process by building a one-stop portal to open up and centralise the data and help transform Hong Kong into a smart city.

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In a plan slated for fruition by 2023, a map-based database called Common Spatial Data Infrastructure (CSDI) would link geographic information to other metadata.

“Some 80 per cent of our data today is geographically related,” Lands Department senior land surveyor Victor Ng Wai-tak said. “At a time when we’re all about co-living and bike-sharing, the CSDI would help bring about a more efficient data-sharing process.”

With a map as a base, anyone could pin their information to a specific location or building

Victor Ng, Lands Department

“With a map as a base, anyone could pin their information to a specific location or building.”

Established data infrastructures in other countries could be applied in Hong Kong and include information such as the number of units in a building, residents’ average age or household incomes.