People from Hong Kong’s ethnic minority groups are not benefiting from government service apps. The Equal Opportunities Commission is urging the government to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help with language support and make app registration easier.
A research team from the University of Hong Kong talked to 412 people from different ethnic groups between July 2024 and March of last year.
They wanted to see how members of these communities used devices to find public information, healthcare services, social media and government apps.
It found that more than 99 per cent of respondents owned a smartphone and used social media daily. However, only 55 per cent said the information provided by government apps was user-friendly.
More than 60 per cent of interviewees had registered for the Hospital Authority’s “HA Go” app, but only 25 per cent used it to book appointments.
Language barriers were a big problem. The study found that only 18 per cent of respondents spoke Chinese well, which made it hard for them to use services in Chinese. At the same time, 13 per cent of people did not speak English well either.
