Drivers to hand over phone number or email for licence

Drivers will have to provide a verified Hong Kong mobile number or email address when applying for or renewing their licence from November 18, the Transport Department announced on Friday. The requirement will enable the police to start issuing any fixed penalty notices by digital means – a move which is set to begin in the first half of next year. "I don't think there is much difficulty because nowadays people get used to technology a lot. What we are changing is only from a paper ticket to an electronic form. All the information is provided in that SMS or email," police superintendent Nip Hoi-kwan said at a press conference. Nip added that he thinks the digitalisation will cut the time officers spend on paperwork for a penalty notice, from around 30 minutes to 15. Helen Lee, a principal executive officer with the Transport Department, said measures are in place to ensure the security of the information collected. "The Transport Department adopts the government cloud infrastructure services, which provide a very reliable and secure infrastructure for the Transport Department to collect and keep the personal data collected through the verification platform," she said. "Moreover, the data collected will be transferred to our central system immediately, so we will not keep any data in the platform."