A new campaign will be launched to fight Hong Kong's spam epidemic, Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology John Tsang said Thursday.
   
Speaking at a luncheon organized by six information and communication technology organizations, Tsang said spamming is a problem affecting almost everyone in Hong Kong.
   
"The fixed telecommunications network service operators received more than 36,000 junk fax complaints in 2004. A survey conducted by the Internet Service Providers Association found that spam had risen to account for around 60 percent of all e-mails with individual members experiencing as much as 90 percent of their e-mails being spam," he said.
  
Drawing on the views expressed to an earlier consultation and the trend on recent developments, the government will launch the STEPS campaign to contain the problem.
   
S, the first letter of STEPS, stands for strengthening existing regulatory measures. In conjunction with relevant industry associations and service providers, the government will start work in two areas -- fax and SMS and MMS.
  
The second letter T stands for technical solutions. The government will collaborate with the industry to organize seminars, conferences and exhibitions to promote the latest anti-spam technical solutions to all users.
   
The third letter E stands for education. "To this end, we will work with industry organizations to develop an information campaign on spam to raise the level of awareness and provide accurate information and useful resources to consumers," Tsang said.
   
The fourth letter P stands for partnerships. "We will work with industry organizations to facilitate the process and liaise with relevant authorities to ensure that the sharing of information in developing and maintaining the common blacklists complies with relevant laws, such as the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance," Tsang said.
   
On global partnership, Tsang said the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau will soon become one of the founding signatories of the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding on Co-operation in Countering Spam, which will facilitate co-operation among Asia-Pacific signatories on many fronts in tackling the problem.
   
The last letter S stands for statutory measures. Enactment of legislation to regulate spamming will prevent Hong Kong from becoming a safe haven sheltering illicit spammers, and facilitate co-operation with overseas jurisdictions in investigation and enforcement work against spammers.
  
Tsang said the legislative framework should be largely acceptable to different stakeholders, and there will be detailed and pragmatic discussions over the next few months before the full draft legislation is introduced into the Legislative Council some time next year.

(China Daily February 25, 2005)