The panic caused by two cyber-hoaxes during the Sars outbreak prompted police to launch a campaign on cyber ethics yesterday.
The programme - targeting schoolchildren, teachers and social workers - follows an incident on April 1 when a 14-year-old boy allegedly used the website logo of the Chinese-language Ming Pao daily on a report he wrote that said Hong Kong was about to be declared an infected port. His action sparked panic-buying at supermarkets and prompted the government to issue an official denial.
A few weeks later another cyber-hoaxer sent an e-mail alleging that a number of private doctors were infected with Sars.
Lam Cheuk-ping, superintendent of the Technology Crime Division of the Commercial Crime Bureau, said there were 187 cases of cyber-crime in the first four months of this year, compared with 272 during the whole of 2002. Of the 33 people arrested in the past four months, 17 were youths.
'There has been an increase [in the number of youths committing cyber-crimes] in the past four months. We need to pay attention to this. Eight of the arrested youths were under the age of 18,' he said.
'During the outbreak, children didn't have to go to school. That means they had more time to use their computers. I think there is a direct correlation.'