I refer to your poll question of July 4: “How can officials ensure better communication over the public benefits of technology?” “It is the unknown we fear...”, wrote J.K. Rowling. This aptly describes the paranoia over privacy concerns because of a collective unfamiliarity with what the terms “data privacy” and “smart city” mean. Data privacy involves data collection only for the purpose it is meant for, secure storage, not sharing without consent, and purging anonymously after it is not required. It is governed by Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, one of Asia’s oldest regulations on data privacy. This ordinance shares common features with European privacy regulations like General Data Privacy Regulation . The concept of a “smart city” is civic governance by deploying technology to collect big data and derive insights that will act as inputs for policymaking. There are some distinct benefits: for example, a 2018 McKinsey Global Institute report showed that smart cities produce less waste. Isn’t this one of the problems that Hong Kong is facing? There is a catastrophic waste management crisis with poor recycling rates and the city is running out of landfills. Smart solutions like QR coding rubbish bins to weigh them and charging households that generate more than optimum thresholds, using the Internet of Things to track garbage movement from collection to disposal or recycling, are some effective measures to use real-time data for waste management. Policymakers have been slammed for not considering on-the-ground scenarios when they have unsuccessfully tried to solve these problems, and rightly so. This is because most such initiatives, like waste recycling plants that are running below capacity or the proposal to incentivise waste collection, have not delivered what they were intended to. Now, when they want to leverage data to build practical solutions, they must first manage public distrust of their intentions. Don’t take chances with data privacy in Covid jab lotteries Of course, under the current climate, there is a certain wariness about sharing data with the government, however noble the cause. Yet the same public will eagerly share their mobile numbers, email addresses and Hong Kong identity card numbers with various private organisations while registering for various vaccination lotteries . Policymakers need to do more to increase public awareness and confidence and should use simple examples like waste management and incentive schemes to dispel doubts and increase participation. It is time Hong Kong made the shift from Asia’s World City to World’s Smart City. Avisekh Biswas, Mong Kok