The Force is currently providing mobile devices to police officers in phases, and these devices have been equipped with mobile applications to enhance work efficiency. As officers are end users of these applications, and some of them are also talented in application design, the Innovation and Solution Lab of the Information Systems Wing organised the first Force Mobile Application Design Competition earlier. Officers were invited to enter the competition individually or as a group. The winning designs may be adopted by the Force in the future.

The Force’s senior management attached great importance to the competition to listen to contestants’ innovative ideas. The competition received an overwhelming response and attracted the participation of over 70 teams. Director of Management Services Lam Hiu-tong and Assistant Commissioner (Information Systems) Kwan Chui-ching acted as judges of the competition and they selected the winning teams after conducting two rounds of interviews. All awards were presented at the “Innovation • Service” Awards Presentation Ceremony on September 23.

Senior Inspector Poon Ka-wai and Police Constable Lai Chi-wai won the Gold Award with their “Operation App”. When introducing the design concept of the “Operation App” to OffBeat, the duo said that the application can enhance the work efficiency of both frontline officers and supporting staff. Poon Ka-wai explained that currently colleagues are required to use computers to access police e-mails through the intranet, and each unit still keeps handwritten records of officers’ leave applications. One of the functions of the “Operation App” allows colleagues to handle these matters with a smart device.

“During the first interview, the judges raised the question over how to protect data and information security of the application. This application has a three-step authentication, and colleagues are required to input their passwords, use smart devices registered with the Force and answer security questions to log in,” Poon Ka-wai said.

Currently, when frontline officers receive deployment orders from Regional Command and Control Centres, they would usually make their way to the scene while listening to the information given to them and writing down the details on paper. After completing their work, they would record the entire incident by hand in their police notebooks. Poon Ka-wai explained, “With the assistance of technology, the ‘Operation App’ can digitalise the police notebook. During the second interview, the judges asked us whether colleagues can add information and amend the record on the application. We have already considered these scenarios and decided that colleagues can make changes to their record on the ‘Operation App’ before they leave work for the day and only their final submitted record would be considered as the actual record. The feasibility of this arrangement was praised by the judges.”

The duo said that the competition was fierce and it was not easy to win the award. They added that if the application is adopted and used by the Force in the future, they would feel very proud to have contributed to the Force.