Japan Wants More People to Use Digital Identification
2022-10-27
LRC
TXT
大字
小字
滚动
全页
1Japan's government wants more people to sign up for digital identification cards (IDs), but the idea is unpopular.
2The government is asking people to apply for plastic My Number cards which have microchips and photos.
3The cards connect to driver's licenses and the public health insurance plans.
4Health insurance cards now in use, which do not have photos, will no longer be used in late 2024.
5People will have to use My Number cards instead.
6That change has created strong disagreement.
7An online petition demanding that the current health cards continue got more than 100,000 signatures in a few days.
8The digital card system began in 2016, but people have been slow to use it.
9Many Japanese worry their information might be stolen and that the digital ID violates their right to privacy.
10There are other reasons people are against the digital cards.
11Some Japanese prefer paper and in-person meetings.
12Many Japanese do business in person, using cash, and many offices require people to bring paper documents.
13Japanese traditionally value quality work done by hand, and many also carefully save documents, keeping them in well-organized files.
14Some say the current health insurance card system has been working well for decades and that going digital will create more work.
15Koichi Kurosawa, secretary-general at the National Confederation of Trade Unions said people would be happier with digitization if it made their work easier and shorter.
16However, he said that was not the case in many Japanese workplaces.
17After leaks of private information and other mistakes, many Japanese do not trust the government.
18They worry about the government having too much power.
19This is partly because of the history of authoritarian government before and during World War II.
20Kurosawa said people "are worried it will lead to tighter surveillance."
21Saeko Fujimori works in the music copyright business.
22She said she is supposed to get My Number information from the people she deals with, but many refuse to share the information.
23"There is a microchip in it, and that means there could be fraud," said Fujimori, who has a My Number but doesn't plan to get the new card.
24"If a machine is reading all the information, that can lead to mistakes in the medical sector, too."
25Getting an existing My Number digitized takes a lot of time and uses paper.
26People must fill out and mail back documents.
27Last month's deadline was extended, but only about half of the Japanese population have a My Number, the government says.
28"They keep failing in anything digital and we have no memories of successful digital transformation by the government," said Nobi Hayashi, a technology expert.
29Hayashi says the government's effort to get more people to get digital cards needs to be more "vision-driven."
30"They don't show a bigger picture, or they don't have one," Hayashi said.
31Yojiro Maeda is a researcher at Nagasaki University who studies local governments.
32He thinks digitization is needed, and My Number is a step in the right direction.
33"You just have to do it," Maeda said.
34Japan's Minister of Digital Affairs, Taro Kono, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that more is needed to persuade people of the benefits of going digital.
35Kono said, "We need to win people's understanding so that My Number cards get used in all kinds of situations."
36I'm Andrew Smith.