ICAC sets integrity standards for government computers to fight misuse

Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has publicly unveiled its standards for the use of government computer systems after uncovering loopholes, including requiring bureaus and departments to self-check their compliance when requesting digital project funds.

Danny Woo Ying-ming, commissioner of the ICAC, said on Wednesday that an investigation by his agency had found that some government computer systems had loopholes that raised the risk of corruption.

“Once systems are abused, data are tampered with and proper procedures bypassed, not only will it incur corruption risks, but it can also damage the government’s integrity,” he said at a ceremony introducing the standards.

Woo said that as of July, all government bureaus and departments were already mandated by the Digital Policy Office to assess whether their computer systems complied with the standards when requesting funds under the Capital Works Reserve Fund for administrative computer systems.

The integrity assurance standards cover 12 steps for internal work processes and focus on users, system administration and monitoring.

Requiring government organisations to self-assess their compliance with the standards was intended to prevent corruption-related risks, the ICAC said.

Such risks include unauthorised data access, ineffective due diligence, circumvention of rules and over-reliance on manual steps, such as checking and sampling, that could be prone to manipulation as a means of corruption.