To facilitate the wider use of electronic transactions in the community pursuant to the Electronic Transactions Ordinance (Cap. 553), a voluntary recognition scheme has been established to encourage interested parties in the private sector to provide recognized certification authority services. For this purpose, a Certification Authority Recognition Office was set up by the OGCIO (or the then ITSD) in December 1999.

Since a common Chinese language interface for information processing and exchange is a key component in the information infrastructure, the OGCIO has assumed a leading role in promoting the adoption of the ISO 10646 standard in Hong Kong.