The Leisure & Cultural Services Department today stated that after it noted a particular concern from users about its SmartPlay app, it immediately required the contractor to address the concern by amending the SmartPLAY system. 

It pointed out that such amendments were required to enhance the procedures of booking turf soccer pitches through SmartPLAY.

As a result, the department explained that the function of adding users as team members by searching "User Account Numbers or Alias" has been removed from the Smart Self-service Stations and SmartPLAY website so that the full Chinese or English name of the users who are not on the friend list will no longer be displayed.

Additionally, the relevant function on the mobile app will be removed upon the approval of corresponding app stores.

The contractor has also started to modify the system to ensure the security of the users' information so that the hirer can only select the users who have accepted invitations to be included in the friend list when submitting the details of four other users for turf soccer pitches booking.

What’s more, the team members will receive notifications for successful bookings.

The department said it reported the incident to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data on Monday night.

After the implementation of SmartPLAY last Thursday, the hirer must fill in the patron numbers of four other users as team members when they book turf soccer pitches, no matter through balloting or on a first-come, first-served basis.

To combat touting activities, the hirer and three of the users named in the booking process must be present to check in for using the booked session.

The search user function was meant to facilitate users in searching for their team members during the booking process, the department explained.

It stressed that the system has been smoother after adjustments were made over the past few days.

The system capacity multiplied to allow booking of facilities by thousands of users simultaneously, while an online queuing system was added before users log in. At present, the system allows 20,000 users to line up simultaneously.

The system completed 3,000 bookings within the first half hour this morning, and users could enter the booking webpage without queuing after that, the department added.