My Number (digital passports in Japan)

My Number is a system of digital ID cards that in Japan are issued to both local citizens and residents who have a visa for a period of 6 months or more and registration with the municipal office at their place of residence.

The system is used to calculate taxes, social insurance payments, when accounting for the population, search, assistance in natural disasters, etc.

2023: Japan's IT minister returns 3-month salary for project failure

On August 15, 2023, it became known that the Minister for Digitalization of Japan Taro Kono (Taro Kono) will voluntarily return his salary for three months in recognition of responsibility for the failed project of digital passports. Read more here.

2019: Weak Japanese interest in the system

In early September 2019, it became known about the weak interest of the Japanese in the My Number system. It is used by only 13.9% of the country's population by August 22, Mainichi reports.

To encourage people to use My Number, the government is taking various measures. One of them is this: a Japanese can get points worth 5,000 yen (about $47), which can be spent in stores throughout Japan if he replenishes his My Number mobile account with 20 thousand yen. This money can be spent on services provided within the system, for example, to pay taxes.

It became known about the weak interest of the Japanese in the My Number system

Similar rewards operate in some areas of the state, and the government initially wanted to take advantage of them at the national level. But they decided to abandon this idea.

The cash incentive program created under My Number will cost Japan's budget several hundred billion yen. It is aimed not only at promoting the system itself, but also at mitigating the consequences of the increase in consumption tax from 8% to 10% in early October 2019. The increase in sales tax is expected to lead to such a sharp decline in consumer demand in the country, which will result in a reduction in the total national economy.

However, Japan plans to gradually expand the scope of My Number to other areas of life: for example, it is assumed that they will replace passports, health insurance cards and other documents.^[1]

See also

• Electronic passport of a citizen of Russia
• Biometric passport of Russia
• System for the manufacture and issue of passport and visa documents of a new type (biopasports)
• Mir System - Release of New Type Passports (HS PVDNP)
• Information Security - Biometric Identification
• Biometrics and Border Control
• Electronic Military ID
• Electronic passport of the facility
• Electronic Passport (Rostec)
• Systems of electronic passports of vehicles in the countries of the Customs Union

• My Number (digital passports in Japan)
• Electronic passport of a Finnish citizen
• Estonian e-citizenshipID card in Estonia
• ID card in Uzbekistan
• Digital ID of Malaysia
• Digitalization of the British Passport Office (Her Majesty's Passport Office, HMPO)

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