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The Financial Secretary announced in the 2015-16 Budget that from this year onwards, free online government information will be released in digital formats. In support of this new initiative, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) launched the revamped public sector information (PSI) portal, Data.Gov.HK, today (March 18).
A spokesman for OGCIO said, "PSI is a treasure trove in the digital era. The Government collects and processes a vast quantity of data in day-to-day operations. Such data, if made available in digital formats, can be creatively re-used to develop innovative products through value-added meshing-up. As far as we know, over 70 mobile applications and services have been developed with PSI datasets since the Government started to release PSI in 2011.
"The Government will step up the release of PSI. We believe that the community, particularly technology startups, can develop more innovative and practical applications and services with their creativity and ingenuity. The PSI initiative helps to open up new business opportunities, bring convenience to the public and benefit society as a whole."
The revamped Data.Gov.HK portal has greater capacity and flexibility with new and useful functions. For instance, the dataset catalogue search function has been enhanced so that users can filter datasets by department, category or format, enabling them to gain access to their target information more quickly. In addition, users can chart or map datasets directly on the portal for advance viewing and preliminary analysis before downloading the whole datasets.
The new portal also showcases and promotes products and services using PSI datasets, thus facilitating download by the general public.
In addition to the datasets provided by the Government, the PSI portal also makes available data collected and managed by public organisations, e.g. information on accessibility facilities through the PSI portal from the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation. The MTR Corporation Limited will soon make available datasets about train stations and services.
The Government launched the PSI portal in 2011 to make available data in digital formats for free download and re-use. At present, more than 3 000 datasets in 18 broad categories are available on the portal, covering policy areas such as environment, finance, weather and transport. Examples of datasets include the Air Quality Health Index, geo-referenced public facility, population census, real-time traffic and weather information.
Ends/Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Issued at HKT 14:07
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