Hong Kong is an international city with a notable size of residents and visitors speaking various languages as their mother tongue. It is natural to speak in one’s mother tongue when calling for emergency assistance. Even though each police officer in Hong Kong meets a certain level of proficiency in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, they may come across people seeking assistance speaking in other languages. This language barrier often causes difficulties or even delay in provision of the emergency service required.
As smart phones will be provided to police officers as standard equipment, an app supporting instant translation on the smart phones would help overcome the language barrier. This would facilitate communications between police officers and their service requesters and in turn make possible timely provision of emergency service.
As the communication between police officers and their service requesters may contain personal data and sensitive information, data collection and subsequent processing for translation has to comply with the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (“PDPO”). Processing models with internet based translation engines are not preferred as they are inherently subject to data leakage, casting doubt on their security and compliance to the PDPO. A secure processing model has to be developed.
