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Ethnic minorities in Hong Kong
Opinion
SCMP Editorial
Editorial
SCMP Editorial

Hong Kong must help ethnic minority groups bridge the digital divide

A recent report indicates ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong are not deriving as much benefit from online services as they could

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Women from ethnic minority groups are seen in Yau Ma Tei on March 26. The Equal Opportunity Commission recommends support for many languages in the city, including Urdu, Hindi, Nepali, Punjabi and Tagalog. Photo: Sam Tsang
SCMP Editorial
Editorials represent the views of the South China Morning Post on the issues of the day.
The digital divide is most commonly associated with older citizens and the difficulties they have using apps for services that need to be more accessible to them. Thanks to research by a team from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), it emerges that Hong Kong has another digital divide – among ethnic minority groups – that crosses age groups.

Given that Hong Kong is an ethnically diverse and multicultural society where east meets west, as well as a magnet for talent, equality of access deserves attention.

The equality watchdog says ethnic minority groups do not benefit as much as they could from online services. It calls for using artificial intelligence (AI) to provide multilingual support and simplify app registration. An HKU research team interviewed 412 members of ethnic minority groups about how they used devices to access public information, healthcare services, social media and government applications. According to EOC chairwoman Linda Lam Mei-sau, ethnic minority members mainly used the devices to browse social media and read news, rather than to access online services.

Only 55 per cent found the information provided by government apps user-friendly. More than 60 per cent had registered for the Hospital Authority’s “HA Go” app, but only 25 per cent used it to book appointments instead of walking in or booking by phone. Focus groups attributed this to complex registration processes and low digital literacy of the older generation.

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