ISE08/16-17

• Robust developments in information and communications technology ("ICT"), in particular broadband and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, have made people more closely connected than before and enhanced their social participation through the Internet. However, there are still concerns that the underprivileged people cannot fully enjoy the benefits of this technological advancement, due to limited access to ICT and a lack of digital skills in the use of the Internet.

• In Hong Kong, 21% of households still did not have Internet access at home in 2015, notwithstanding that digital inclusion^{1Legend symbol denoting Digital inclusion, or rather, reducing digital exclusion, is about ensuring that people have the capability to use the Internet to do things that benefit them day to day.} initiatives have launched over the past two decades since 1998. At various meetings of the Panel on Information Technology and Broadcasting since 2008, members have repeatedly urged the Government to pursue the goal of developing Hong Kong into an inclusive, knowledge-based society.
• The United Kingdom ("UK") is acclaimed as one of the most mature digital economies in the world, with just 11% of households without Internet access at home in 2016. This was in part a result of the digital inclusion strategy launched by the UK government, with an explicit policy target to make everyone digitally included by 2020. This issue of Essentials begins with a quick review on key issues in promoting digital inclusion in Hong Kong, followed by a discussion of the relevant initiatives in the UK.

Recent developments on digital inclusion in Hong Kong

• Under the "Digital 21 Strategy"^{2Legend symbol denoting The Digital 21 Strategy is the blueprint for the development of ICT in Hong Kong. It is updated regularly to take into account technological advancement and changing needs of society.} launched in 2008, the Government has targeted three priority groups for digital inclusion, namely the elderly, persons with disabilities and students from low-income families. However, the penetration rate of the Internet stayed low at just 35% for the elderly aged 65 or above in 2015 and 23% for persons with disabilities in 2013. As regards grassroots families with a monthly household income below HK$10,000, the respective Internet penetration rate was just 36% in 2015. All of them were far below the territory-wide figure of 79%.
• In addition, many elderly and disabled people in Hong Kong still do not have smartphones, which conceivably can connect them to the cyberworld more easily due to more intuitive graphical user interfaces, obviating the need for more sophisticated digital skills such as keyboard commands.^{3Legend symbol denoting See Boulos (2011) and Good Things Foundation (2015).} In 2015, only 35% of the elderly owned a smartphone, and the respective figure for persons with disabilities was 53%. Both of them were far below the territory-wide figure of 83%.
• This lacklustre progress in digital inclusion can be attributable to a number of factors. First of all, limited tailor-made initiatives for the priority groups. Since 2012, the Government has funded non-governmental organizations ("NGOs") to develop mobile applications ("apps") catering for special needs of the elderly, the disabled and ethnic minorities. However, altogether only 12 apps have been developed by end-2015, getting just 56 000 download counts. Matching with 374 000 elderly owners of smartphone, this translates into only 0.15 downloads on average per elderly. Meanwhile, although outreach visits to elderly institutions were made to promote digital inclusion since 2012, only 49 visits have been made to residential care homes and day care centres in the territory, accounting for 5.5% of the total.
• Secondly, limited progress in the Internet Learning Support Programme ("ILSP"). The five-year ILSP was launched in July 2011 to assist students from low-income families to acquire computers and subscribe to Internet access services through two implementation agents.^{4Legend symbol denoting The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer has engaged two non-profit organizations, namely The Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong and WebOrganic, to implement the programme in the Eastern and Western parts of Hong Kong respectively.} Nevertheless, only 43 724 families had bought computers under ILSP by end-2015, representing 8.4% of the target beneficiaries of 520 000 students from 382 000 low-income families.
• According to the mid-term ILSP review,^{5Legend symbol denoting See Legislative Council Secretariat (2014).} service recipients considered that the pricing, choices of computers and broadband service packages under ILSP were too restrictive and limited. In fact, altogether there are only six models of desktop computers and six models of notebook computers from two brands offered by the implementation agents, while broadband service packages are provided by a single Internet service provider. Moreover, some parents from low-income families were concerned about "the possible downsides" of being online, worrying that their children may be so hooked to computers and the Internet that they would lose interest in the study. This tended to weaken their incentives to participate in ILSP.
• Thirdly, limited understanding of key issues faced by persons with disabilities in the use of the Internet. As at end-2015, while a vast majority of government websites had met W3C Level AA standard, this is not so for most privately launched websites in Hong Kong.^{6Legend symbol denoting In 2012, the Government required all government websites to meet the stringent requirements under Level AA standard of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.0 promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium, commonly known as W3C. As at end-2015, among 465 Government websites, 458 or 98% had been enhanced to meet the standard. See Innovation and Technology Bureau (2016).} So far, the Government merely promulgated best practices for website and mobile apps development, without concrete measures to enhance motivation and digital skills training of disabled persons in the use of the Internet. According to a household survey,^{7Legend symbol denoting See Census and Statistics Department (2014).} among 192 000 persons with disabilities who had smartphones or tablets at home, only 106 000 or 55% had ever used it. Furthermore, 95% of the disabled expressed that they did not have any need to go online.

Digital inclusion strategy in the United Kingdom

• In 2008, 35% of the UK households did not have Internet access at home. After the outbreak of the global financial crisis in the same year, the UK government recognized the potential of digital technology (a) to re-define the competitiveness of an economy; and (b) to change the daily lives of people in respect of education, skills and employment, health and well-being, and consumer savings. To maximize the benefits from the digital revolution, the UK government was committed to ensuring that "people have the capabilities and skills to flourish in the digital economy, and that all can participate in digital society".^{8Legend symbol denoting See Department for Business Innovation and Skills (2009).}
• Since 2009, the UK government has formulated relevant policies and strategies to reduce digital exclusion, concentrating on promotion of access to the Internet, motivation and skills in using the Internet. Similar to Hong Kong, the UK government also targeted several disadvantaged groups for digital inclusion, including children from low-income families, the elderly and persons with disabilities.
• For children from low-income families, the UK government launched the Home Access Programme ("HAP") in 2009, providing grants for low-income families with children^{9Legend symbol denoting The beneficiaries were those households with children aged seven to 14 and eligible for "Free School Meals".} to buy a computer and get their home connected to the Internet for one year. Unlike Hong Kong, grant recipients in the UK have a greater degree of freedom in the choice of computers and Internet services. Grant recipients were given a debit card loaded with £500 (HK$6,000) worth of credit to buy any computer and Internet service from any suppliers. Apart from freedom of choice given to the grant recipients, HAP also minimized the burden of administrative work of local authorities since they were not required to source the suppliers, evaluate the computer models and the Internet services, for offering to the eligible applicants of programme.^{10Legend symbol denoting See Department of Education (2010).}
• In 2010, a total of 267 244 households or 81% of the targeted households bought computers under HAP. While it involved a total cost of £194 million (HK$2.3 billion), the UK government estimated that it brought wider benefits amounting to £768 million (HK$9.2 billion) in return, primarily through improved educational attainment, and hence enhanced lifetime earnings potential of those children from low-income families.
• Moreover, the UK government pro-actively engaged schools under HAP to help the parents of targeted students understand how ICT could help their children both in their study and homework. As such, schools actively promoted HAP to parents through many channels, including Open Days, parents evenings, sending letters and flyers to the parents, and making direct phone calls to them. According to an HAP evaluation report^{11Legend symbol denoting Ibid.}, promotion through schools is effective in engaging parents, especially for those hard-to-reach parents. This is considered to be crucial in the success of HAP.
• For the elderly and persons with disabilities, the UK government attempted to enhance their basic digital skills^{12Legend symbol denoting According to the UK government, basic digital skills are "the skills needed to carry out basic functions such as using digital applications to communicate and carry out basic Internet searches". See GovUK (2016).}. In 2011, 78% of the elderly were digitally illiterate, while 56% of the UK population who lacked basic digital skills were with disabilities. To address this question, the UK government has relied on its subsidized charity, Good Things Foundation^{13Legend symbol denoting Good Things Foundation (formerly Tinder Foundation) is a charity that supports digitally and socially excluded people to improve their lives through digital technology. It was originally a social enterprise, known as Online Centres Foundation, before rebranding as Tinder Foundation in 2013. A further rebrand, to Good Things Foundation, took place in November 2016.}, to coordinate the Online Centres Network ("OCN") since 2011. OCN consists of more than 5  000 community organizations that provide basic digital skills training to the digitally illiterates. All these learning centres are located in convenient places such as public libraries, community centres or even shopping centres, pubs or cafés in rural areas. This apart, many centres also provide outreach services to the elderly and the disabled, getting over the hurdles of these learners who might not have the confidence or motivation to attend formal training lesson.
• During 2010-2016, OCN has enabled two million people to acquire basic digital skills in the use of the Internet. Among these beneficiaries, 21% and 43% were elderly and persons with disabilities respectively. According to the evaluation report on OCN, "for every £1 invested … £5 of social value is generated to stakeholders". While service users reaped 86% of this social value, the remaining 14% went to the government as the elderly used more cost-saving digital government services, and the enhanced employability of the disabled reduced their welfare dependency.^{14Legend symbol denoting See Good Things Foundation (2016a).}
• This apart, Good Things Foundation launched the Widening Digital Participation Programme ("WDPP") jointly with the National Health Service ("NHS") in April 2013, with a particular focus on hard-to-reach communities. Put it simply, WDPP (a) offered face-to-face outreach support to assist people in learning digital skills to deal with matters relating to healthcare and medical services; and (b) developed a digital content relating to health^{15Legend symbol denoting The digital content aims to help people access health information online and learn how to complete digital medical transactions.}. During 2013-2016, a total of 221 941 people received training to use digital health resources and tools ("learners"), 19% and 44% of whom were the elderly and the disabled respectively. Since more people used the Internet as their first port of call for information, this resulted in the following benefits in the utilization of public health services:
  
  

  (a)	10% of learners made fewer calls to NHS emergency and urgent care services;
  (b)	22% of learners have progressed to book NHS appointments online;
  (c)	20% of learners ordered repeat prescriptions online; and
  (d)	while investment in WDPP amounted to £2.7 million (HK$33 million), annual savings to NHS amounted to £6 million (HK$73 million), precipitating the UK government to run WDPP for another five years, after completion of the first-stage programme in April 2016.

• For promotion of the rights of the disabled, the Equality Act 2010 came into force in the UK to protect people from discrimination in society.^{16Legend symbol denoting In 1995, the UK put in place the Disability Discrimination Act to protect the persons with disabilities from discrimination. The Equality Act 2010 builds on this with a modernized and simplified approach pulling together all strands of anti-discrimination legislation into a coherent and accessible whole.} Under the Act, neglecting to provide service to the disabled normally provided to other persons is unlawful discrimination. As the provisions also apply to web services, web owners have an obligation to ensure that the information on their websites is accessible to persons with disabilities. Furthermore, digital services must be compatible with the tools some disabled people use, like screen readers or Braille software.

Observations

• By and large, the measures and approaches adopted by the UK government to promote digital inclusion are effective and may have reference value for Hong Kong. They include (a) engaging schools to help the parents understand how ICT could benefit their children in study; (b) providing digital skills training at convenient locations for the needy; (c) helping the elderly and the disabled to make use of ICT to acquire healthcare and medical services; and (d) introducing legislation to protect the rights of the disabled to use digital services.

Prepared by YU Chun-ho
Research Office
Information Services Division
Legislative Council Secretariat
23 January 2017