A symposium on "Effective Use of Social Media in Policing Work" was held by the Police Public Relations Branch (PPRB) at the Police Headquarters on February 17 to optimise the use of the new medium of mass communication in policing and community engagement. Nearly 300 police officers, representatives from other government departments, local and overseas scholars and law enforcement officers as well as guests from the social media sector converged to explore the subject.

Delivering an opening address at the event, Commissioner Lo Wai-chung stressed that the Hong Kong Police Force is committed to disseminating reliable and accurate messages to the community as part of the wider community engagement strategies. He said, "In 2012, we officially started to use social media and mobile applications to communicate with the public. We reached the milestone of 100,000 'Likes' on our Facebook page last year and our follower base on other social media platforms, including Instagram, continues to grow."

Mr Lo remarked that as social media continues to evolve and develop, the Hong Kong Police Force must do so and come up with new innovative and effective strategies to best utilise it.

The symposium covered two sessions including "The application of social media in specific policing areas" and "How social media is changing the way we communicate". In the morning session, speakers from Facebook, Boston Police and Queensland Police Service talked about the use of social media in handling missing person cases, terrorist attacks and major disasters respectively, followed by a panel discussion by these speakers and a delegate of the Singapore Police Force. The afternoon session featured four speakers from Facebook, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Smart City Consortium and MTR Corporation, who gave their views on ways of using social media to strengthen communication between the Force and the public. Attendees also exchanged views with the speakers at panel discussions.

At the end of the symposium, Deputy Commissioner (Operations) Lau Yip-shing concluded, "From the presentations and panel discussions, we have benefited from the expertise and knowledge of our distinguished guests who have shared their insights and experience from a very wide range of perspectives, both locally and overseas and from the private sector and law enforcement backgrounds.

"We must not be afraid to take up the challenges of using social media as it is very much part of the fabric of today's society and the opportunities that it provides us to garner support and understanding from the community are too great to miss," Mr Lau added.