In today’s data-driven world, open data has provided resources for technology research and city innovation, facilitating the development of digital economy and smart city. The Hong Kong Observatory is one of the supporters and providers of the Open Data Portal and makes open data available in machine-readable format for commercial or non-commercial purposes free-of-charge via the platform. This sharing of data could facilitate the development of new solution and innovations, as well as academic research and analysis.

Currently, there are totally 48 sets of the Observatory’s open data available on the Open Data Portal, offering latest weather observation, weather forecast, calendar, earthquake and tidal information, etc. Aligning with international practices and ensure convenient access by the public, the datasets were provided with the following requirements wherever applicable:

1.      Machine-readable formats, including JSON, XML and CSVe:
2.      Updated timely, particularly for real-time data
3.      Annotated with proper data description
4.      Removing unnecessary terms and conditions.

Application Programming Interface (API) is specifically designed for machine-to-machine communication, enabling users to employ systems to directly and automatically retrieve open data from the Observatory. These data formats adhere to strict specifications and standards, ensuring quick and reliable parsing and usage of information by the software and application developed by users. By sharing data via APIs, real-time data exchange is achieved, making automated data updates more up-to-date and efficient, and more suitable for daily operations of smart cities^[1].

The innovation and technology industries (including start-ups) could make use of the data opened up to develop more applications and enhance quality of services, thereby providing public with greater convenience and more innovative products and services.