Japan to change laws that require use of floppy disks
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Loading... - Asmara Lubis
- 21 Sep 2022
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Japan's digital minister Taro Kono has pledged to rip up laws that require floppy disks and CD-ROMs to be used when sending data to the nation's government.
The news emerged on Tuesday at Japan's 5th Digital Society Concept Conference, where a strategy for future digital government services was outlined. Japan appears set to go down the well-worn road of issuing a national ID – called MyNumber in this instance – to its people so that they can access various government services.
But because such services by their nature involve uploading data to government agencies, the minister initiated a review of laws governing that process of submitting information. That effort found more than 1,900 regulations that stipulate how data can be shared with government – and as explained in this document [PDF in Japanese], many require the use of floppy disks or CD-ROMs. Newfangled techniques such as uploading info via the internet are not described, so are technically not permitted.
Kono pledged to rewrite those regulations, ASAP, so that Japan's digital plan can proceed unhindered.
He's not the first to try give Japan a dose of digital transformation. In 2021 former prime minister Yoshihide Suga promised to reduce reliance on the use of seals and fax machines. But Suga's time in the top job was short and his digital agenda was not delivered.
Kono is younger and more tech-savvy, and even has two Twitter accounts, one in Japanese and another in English. Read More...
