FDST is co-ordinating the implementation of the standard date and date/time formats. The implementation exercise started in February and is scheduled for completion by the end of November.

You can get to the site on POINT (the Police Intranet) by surfing to http://ux37phq.hpf.gov.hk:8088/bbs/isw/itb/ss2/projs/fdst/fds_brief.htm. The site provides easy reference to Force standard data values for attributes such as Location, Post Type and Rank.

The FDST of Information Technology Branch, is the standardisation body co-ordinating the work of establishing and enforcing corporate data standards Data Administration facilitates the creation, maintenance and accessibility of the Force's core data assets.

With the greater number of new information systems being deployed within a shorter time frame, a need has arisen for key data in these systems to be made compatible so that it can be utilised effectively.

The systems need to be made more consistent, as users increasingly come into contact with more than one type of Information System. If two systems use different location codes for Airport District, say "PDIST" and "APTDIST", data exchange between the two becomes difficult as there are two codes for Airport District.

Similarly, systems using different formats for data, say for Police Case Numbers, e.g. 99000001, 1/99, 1/1999 etc must also be standardised so that systems conform to corporate standards. The standardisation of date and date/time presentation formats for all Force information systems was endorsed in February, in accordance with International Standard ISO 8601 set by the International Standards Organisation (ISO).

The new date and date/time formats are: Complete date: YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 1999-07-16); Complete date plus hours and minutes:YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM (e.g. 1999-07-16 19:20);

Complete date plus hours, minutes and seconds: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (e.g. 1999-07-16 19:20:36).




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