Reply To: Week 3 Topic discussion 2

[Ching To Chung]

Hong Kong has been driving its efforts towards technology and transformation. The one thing that I think we need to work on is definitely transparency and trust.
It is important for the health system to be transparent towards its users. As the paper mentioned, this would involve ensuring that data policies are fair and equal, and that privacy and ethical principles are respected. However, the current systems are very transparent to its users and citizens have little knowledge about them. There are only very long and overly complicated terms and conditions which pose a very high barrier to understand them. The system only aims to fulfil its legal obligations, but not transparency and openness to its users. Users are not educated about their rights and what their data may be used for.
The paper also mentioned the need to building relationships such that trust exists prior to the emergency. This is a very difficult obstacle for Hong Kong. While we would all hope medicine and health to be entirely isolated from other aspects, it is unfortunately always influenced by other factors such as politics and conflicts, similar to what classmates from Myanmar have mentioned above. Hong Kong is a subsidiary of China which is a country notorious for its draconian policies and intense surveillance on its people. With tense political relations and general distrust towards the government, it would not be easy to convince the general public that the data collected would only be used for medical purposes. There is general anxiety and concerns that data collected by the government would be used for political purposes. The health system would need to develop an impression and image of professionalism in order to build trust with the Hong Kong people.