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OGCIO

Release of Public Sector Information in Digital Format

Public Sector Information (PSI) refers to the great quantity and variety of information collected, produced, disseminated and possessed by the Government and public bodies (e.g. demographic, socio-economic, geographical, meteorological and municipal management data) as a part of their day-to-day operations.

International experience shows that, with the advancement of information and communications technology, there can be active and creative value-added re-use of PSI by the community if it is made available in digital format. Developing applications which use, mesh up or integrate raw PSI data can tap community wisdom to bring convenience to the public, promote innovation, create business opportunities and even encourage entrepreneurship.

To this end, we launched the government PSI portal in 2011 to make available PSI in digital format for re-use for commercial or non-commercial purposes free of charge. The datasets available on the portal have since increased progressively.

The Financial Secretary announced in the 2015-16 Budget that from 2015 onwards, free online government information will be released in digital formats. The revamped PSI portal (Data.Gov.HK) has been launched on 18 March 2015 to facilitate the dissemination of datasets provided by government departments and public organisations.