Japan’s digital minister has promised to scrap laws requiring data sent to the government to be shipped on floppy disks and other physical media.
Japan’s Digital Minister Taro Kono pledged last week to scrap Japanese laws that mandate the use of floppy disks and CD-ROMs in the country’s systems. In a tweet from his Twitter account, Mr. Kono said that it was declaring “war” on floppy disks as part of its digital transformation and the ability for citizens to submit data online.
Mr. Kono explained that there are about 1,900 articles in Japanese laws that require companies to submit forms to the government on diskette. There are also 157 laws that specifically require submissions to be sent on optical discs, magnetic discs, and magnetic tapes.
“The digital minister declares war on floppy disks”
Because these laws don’t provide an online mechanism, they technically force businesses and citizens to use technology that many consumers can’t even find in a store today: Sony stopped selling floppy disks in 2011.
“Digital Minister declares war on floppy disks”, Kono writes. “There are approximately 1,900 government procedures that require companies to use disks, i.e. floppy disks, CDs, MDs, etc. to submit applications and other forms. The digital agency aims to change these policies so that you can use them online.”
The country is also embarking on the establishment of a national smart card identification system called My Number that citizens can use to electronically sign tax declarations online, make online requests for other government services . It will also be possible to use My Number for online banking connections and signing transactions.
Continued use of fax machines and “hanko”
The tech-savvy Minister for Digital has made the case for My Number and online transactions on his blog, detailing the difficulties faced by municipalities in distributing emergency allowances to citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic. 19. At the time, citizens had to attach a copy of their passport and bank account information to receive benefits, he notes.
Bloomberg reports that Mr. Kono, a potential candidate for prime minister, has criticized the inefficiency of the national bureaucracy, including the continued use of fax machines and the “hanko” or red stamp used to sign official documents. “I’m looking to get rid of the fax machine, and I still intend to do that,” he told a news conference.
Japan is not the only government to abandon the diskette late. The US Air Force only replaced floppy disks for the management of its nuclear arsenal in 2019, with SSD disks.
Source: “ZDNet.com”