The deputy director of the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP), Kou Peng Kuan, said that the government would announce the city’s overall planning for e-government for 2015 to 2019 within the third quarter of this year.
Replying to legislator Chan Meng Kam’s interpellation that urged a timeframe for such planning, Mr. Kou wrote that e-administration planning would be submitted for the government’s internal consultation next month before the announcement of the plan in the third quarter.
Read more: MO: Overall planning of e-government to be announced in Q3
The new generation of ID cards will be purely contactless, and will store personal data and biometric information such as fingerprints on a digital chip embedded in the card. The IDs can be used as conventional IDs, providing sophisticated visual and electronic proof of identity, but will also allow citizens to carry out transactions with the government electronically, saving time and effort.
But today ICT can also play an essential role in promoting sustainable development, said Peter Haddawy, director of the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST), which is based in Macau.
UNU-IIST is a branch of the United Nations University, founded as the academic arm of the UN. The UNU-IIST is based here because Macau “stepped up” some 20 years ago and put up the funding to establish the institute.
The eMacao program, launched in 2006, has so far focused on providing information to the public but will soon become “more interactive,” Simon Chan Kai Man said. One project on the table involves smartphone applications providing services such as SMS-payment.
But the official warned that the eMacao is “a long-term” initiative. “It depends on the population and also on the technology available,” he explained.
In the third edition of the newsletter published by the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) yesterday, Fong said that the construction of a corruption-free environment is not a matter for only one or two departments, but everyone in society.
“The balance and monitoring of powers, social participation, and a sound and updated system are the keys to an integrity mechanism in the modern world,” the commissioner added.