The meeting of the Force performance pledge in responding to 999 calls increased to 99.3 per cent in the first half of this year, over the 98 per cent of previous years.

The Force improved its meeting of the pledge which is nine minutes in the urban area and 15 minutes in rural places. The 999 hotline receives about 8,000 calls daily.

However, Senior Superintendent (Operations) Suen Kwai-leung said out of the 1,492,328 calls made to the three 999 consoles during the period only 402,507 (27 per cent) were genuine. The others were nuisance or mis-dialled calls. Speaking to the press on July 25, Mr Suen expressed concern over the misuse of the 999 hotline adding the Force had set up a working group to look into the problem and recommend strategy to improve the service.

"At present, Police are using the Caller Number Display system to ensure all incoming calls can be further pursued if necessary.

"To further improve our service, a Caller Address Display System (CAD) will be introduced to the 999 consoles by the end of the year for speedy and accurate tracing of the location of callers," Mr Suen said. The CAD system would rapidly find the address of callers who could not tell their exact location and those making prank calls or hoax reports.

"The system, capable of conducting instant checks on all residential and business telephone lines as well as public pay-phones, will facilitate Police to swiftly respond to emergencies and to take action against people misusing the 999 hotline," Mr Suen said.

He emphasised there would be clear and tight guidelines governing the use of the system, saying it would be recorded and supervised by senior officers and would not breach the Personal Data Privacy Ordinance.

In control: Meeting of the 999 response pledge is increasing despite the heavy burden of bogus calls