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Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region – 4

　　​The Transport Department (TD) today (August 8) alerted members of the public to fraudulent website addresses that pretend to be the Public Transport Fare Subsidy Scheme (PTFSS) (see the PTFSS website for details) and seek to deceive members of the public into providing their credit card account and personal information.

　　The TD clarifies that the fraudulent websites have no connection with the PTFSS and has referred the case to the Police for follow-up. The TD reiterates that members of the public are not required to provide credit card and personal information for collecting subsidies under the PTFSS. For details of the subsidy collection, please visit the PTFSS website.

　　Members of the public should stay alert when receiving any unidentified messages, and should not visit suspicious websites or disclose any personal information. Anyone who has provided his or her personal information to the websites concerned should contact the Police. Should users of Octopus and AlipayHK have any enquiries about the PTFSS, please call 2969 5500 (Octopus) and 3002 0905 (AlipayHK) respectively.

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region – 4

     The Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) announced today (August 8) the list of 10 school teams shortlisted for the final round of the 5G Campus Application Competition 2025.
 
     OFCA is organising the Competition for the third year under the theme “5G x Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) – The Sky is the Limit for Knowledge” to enhance secondary school students’ understanding of fifth generation mobile (5G) technology and UAS, and encourage them to explore the application of 5G technology in the low-altitude economy, with a view to enhancing their creativity and uncovering their potential in innovative technologies.
 
     Launched in May this year, the Competition consists of two contest rounds. The first-round submission of entries closed at the end of July, with entries from 48 teams across 38 schools received. The entries showcase the abundant creativity of the participating teams. They cover a wide range of applications integrating 5G and UAS technologies with the low-altitude economy, which provide innovative and practical smart living solutions, such as anti-phone deception, search and rescue, crowd and traffic control, construction site safety, and real-time monitoring and maintenance.
 
     The first-round judging panel comprised representatives from OFCA and the Hong Kong Productivity Council, the co-organiser of the Competition. After a detailed assessment based on the scoring criteria, the following 10 school teams have been shortlisted to compete in the final round (listed in alphabetical order of the school names):
 

Team	Entry title
Cheung Chuk Shan College	Smart Landfill Monitoring and Campus STEAM Resource Platform
Hong Kong Sea School	5G Beach Monitoring and Emergency Rescue System
Lok Sin Tong Leung Kau Kui College	Anti-scam Spider Drone
Marymount Secondary School	Trailbuddy
Po Leung Kuk Ma Kam Ming College	Drone Park
Queen Elizabeth School Old Students’ Association Secondary School	SKYGUIDE 5G
Shun Tak Fraternal Association Yung Yau College	Smart System on Maintenance Work after Severe Weather
S.K.H. Chan Young Secondary School	Construction S.A.F.E.
St. Paul’s Convent School	5G x UAS for Traffic Enforcement
Tsuen Wan Government Secondary School	I Mist the Summer

 
     The finalists will be invited to participate in the Drone Operation and Mobile App Development Training Workshop to gain hands-on experience with drone operation and learn how to develop advanced mobile applications to demonstrate the feasibility and objectives of their entries. The finalists will then participate in the final-round competition on December 6 to present and explain their entries to the final-round judging panel, which comprises representatives from OFCA, academia, research institutes and industry experts. The judging panel will select the winners based on the scoring criteria. The award presentation ceremony will be held on the same day.
 
     For more details and the latest news of the Competition, please visit the thematic website.

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region – 4

A 32-year-old man was convicted at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on August 6 for importing duty-not-paid cigarettes and making use of an altered structure of a vehicle for the purpose of smuggling articles, in contravention of the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance (DCO) and the Import and Export Ordinance (IEO). He was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for each of the charges that will run concurrently.

Through risk assessment and intelligence analysis, Hong Kong Customs intercepted an inbound private car, declared to be empty, at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Hong Kong Port on June 12, 2024. Upon inspection, Customs officers seized a total of 30 800 sticks of duty-not-paid cigarettes from the doors, console box, the rear and a compartment installed underneath the vehicle. The male driver was subsequently arrested and the private car was also seized. The estimated market value of the cigarettes seized in the case was about $180,000 and the duty potential was about $100,000.

Customs welcomes the sentence. The custodial sentence has imposed a considerable deterrent effect and reflects the seriousness of the offences. 

Customs reminds members of the public that under the DCO, tobacco products are dutiable goods to which the DCO applies. Any person who imports, deals with, possesses, sells or buys illicit cigarettes commits an offence. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $1 million and imprisonment for two years. 

Moreover, smuggling is a serious offence. Under the IEO, any person found guilty of making use of the altered structure of a vehicle for the purpose of smuggling articles is liable to a maximum fine of $2 million and imprisonment for seven years upon conviction.

Customs will continue to combat cross-boundary smuggling activities with firm enforcement action.

Members of the public may report any suspected illicit cigarette activities to Customs’ 24-hour hotline 182 8080 or its dedicated crime-reporting email account (crimereport@customs.gov.hk) or online form (eform.cefs.gov.hk/form/ced002).

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Source: Hong Kong Information Services

The Food & Environmental Hygiene Department today launched departmental Facebook and Instagram pages to enhance public understanding of its services and disseminate important information quickly and directly.

 

The department invites people to visit, follow and share the information on the pages through Facebook, Instagram or the QR codes.

 

The department’s existing pages – “Keep Clean Ambassador Ah Tak” and “Centre for Food Safety” – will continue to publicise messages on keeping Hong Kong clean and promoting food safety through lively characters.