VI. Updating of Information

26. It is the responsibility of a bureau/department to ensure that information put on the Internet is up-to-date. Bureaux/departments should determine, in respect of each document uploaded onto its homepages, the frequency in respect of which the document should be updated.

27. A work schedule, containing a comprehensive list of updating frequencies thus determined, should be compiled for follow up by all staff involved in the updating of the homepages. The work schedule should provide for the continuous updating of any information expected by the public to be 100% up-to-date. Examples of such information are organisation charts, holders of specific posts and telephone numbers.

28. To facilitate Internet users, bureaux/departments should post on each page a last revision date (修訂日期). The ‘What’s New’ section should be updated regularly. Some information may require less frequent updating (e.g. fact sheets). In that case some form of indication, e.g. last review date (覆檢日期), should be included to show that the information is still up-to-date. Either “Last revision date” or “Last review date”, whichever is the later, is to be used on each page. Outdated web contents should be removed from the website as soon as they are no longer applicable.

29. Bureaux/departments should review and update their websites at least once a year.

30. There have been criticisms that the Government does not upload quickly enough onto its homepages useful information relating to unexpected issues. Apart from the continuous updating of existing information, bureaux/departments should be prepared to respond efficiently to those issues by uploading necessary related information swiftly. Links to related homepages should be checked frequently to make sure that they are valid. Similarly, all relevant hyperlinks should be updated before any removal of web pages, graphics files, etc. from the site. If there are other external hyperlinks pointing to these web pages, the webmasters of the “referring” websites should be informed of the update as well.

31. If webmasters are planning to take down a website temporarily by removing the web pages in question, webmasters should post a maintenance page with relevant information like reason of maintenance, time of resumption, etc., to inform users about the status.

32. Any out-dated or obsolete web pages should be removed from the production site. If these orphan pages are still retained on-line, they may be accessible through the search results from search engines though no navigation path to the obsolete page is available. This may result in users getting incorrect or outdated information from the website. If the website is maintained and hosted by an external web-hosting company, the bureau/department concerned should ensure that all web pages are removed from the server of the company at the end of service contract or upon contract termination, as appropriate. Any obsolete domain names should also be deregistered as soon as they are not applicable.

33. Any remark statements in the source of web pages or script used during the development process or revision marks in documents should be removed before the website goes production. Any such information if not removed may open up opportunity for malicious attack. Test program or script should also be removed from the production site since malicious attackers may make use of any vulnerability in these test programs or scripts to compromise the website.

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