The Labour Department on Wednesday said it would look into the wider use of drones at construction sites to detect smoking as it described the latest prosecution number as unsatisfactory.

The department has so far issued 39 smoking fixed penalty notices and 11 advisories to contractors who failed to take steps to comply with the ban during 1,400 inspections at construction sites since the smoking order took effect in July 17.

Assistant commissioner Wan Chi-ping said the department had recently been testing the use of small drones equipped with infrared thermal imaging cameras to help detect heat-generating work processes or heat sources at construction sites.

He said the department was also studying the integration of artificial intelligence to analyse whether workers are smoking on site, with research on that expected to be completed within nine months to one year.

Wan said small drones fitted with infrared thermal cameras could be calibrated to identify whether someone is smoking.

When a heat source is detected, a red dot will appear on the monitoring screen, he said, and on-site officers could then conduct further evidence gathering, track down suspects, and alert inspection teams to take enforcement action.

He also said 64 enforcement operations using small drones were carried out between October last year and July this year, leading to more than 220 prosecutions, with the majority of the cases involving a failure to implement proper safety measures for working at height and unsafe lifting operations.

"The drones can be used to detect irregularities on site without alerting any people nearby. So with the use of drones, we have successfully detected a lot of irregularities on site. And in the future, we will keep using it. And we also will add AI functions in the infrared thermal sensors so that we could be more effectively in detecting irregularities," he said.

Wan said the drone technology helps overcome geographical limitations and facilitates remote monitoring and evidence collection at construction sites.



Edited by Tony Sabine