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Secure data transfer known as blockchain set to tackle notorious bid-rigging among Hong Kong’s building owners’ corporations

  • Almost half of 40,000 private developments in city have owners’ groups that vote on major renovation projects and costs
  • But some polls are seen as ‘black-box operations’ involving collusion with contractors to make households pay more

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Mazon Tsang from Blue Sea IT, one of the start-ups working on the application of blockchain technology. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Hong Kong start-ups are using the technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to build polling systems that can protect against vote manipulation.

Known as blockchain, the secure method of information transfer is being targeted at property owners who vote on major matters about their buildings such as large renovation projects.

In recent years, multimillion-dollar building projects in Hong Kong have made headlines for bid-rigging controversies. In some cases the owners suspected their representatives – the so-called owners’ corporations – were colluding with contractors to manipulate polls so households ended up paying hefty sums far beyond market rates.

According to the start-ups, a blockchain-based voting system can boost turnout, allow voters to verify whether their choices have been correctly recorded, and prevent any party from tampering with polling records. However, concerns remain over such a system’s legality and security.

“Hong Kong people have really negative views of owners’ corporations because of all the bid-rigging cases and a lack of transparency in some,” said Leo Lo Ming-yan, founder of Fonto, which has been developing a blockchain voting system. “We hope to use the technology to solve the issue of trust.”

Hong Kong people have really negative views of owners’ corporations because of all the bid-rigging cases and a lack of transparency in some
Leo Lo, Fonto

As blockchain stores records in a network of computers instead of a centralised system, with each new record linked to previous ones, it is extremely difficult for anyone to make changes. Each set of data in the chain is time-stamped, secured and bounded to other “blocks” using cryptographic principles.

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