Japan Press Weekly

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2015 August 26 - September 1 [POLITICS]

Yamashita demands cancellation of ‘My Number’ program

The House of Councilors on August 28 at its plenary session passed a bill to expand the use of the planned ID number system, which is scheduled to start in January, after making additional amendments. The amended bill will be enacted with an approval by the House of Representatives.

On the previous day at a House of Councilors Cabinet Committee meeting on the bill, Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Yamashita Yoshiki revealed that one or two out of ten municipalities preparing for the ID number system failed to implement a government-required cybersecurity measure.

Under the ID number for social security and taxation system also called the “My Number” system, every resident in Japan will be given a 12-digit number which will bundle various personal information of each resident together.

Yamashita pointed out that in June a vast amount of personal information was found to have leaked from the computer network of the Japan Pension Service. Saying that the general public is increasing their anxiety over the information security of government organizations, he asked the central government if it instructed local governments to improve their cybersecurity measures following the incident.

An official of the Internal Affairs Ministry said that as a measure to safeguard personal information, the ministry in June requested municipalities to separate their internal systems storing personal data from information systems connected to the Internet.

Yamashita asked the ministry official about the number of municipalities that are not ready for the separation of the systems.

The ministry official replied that as of August 18 around 10-20% of municipalities have yet to implement the measure.

Yamashita stressed that the Japan Pension Service’s internal system is separated from its information system but the organization suffered data security breaches nonetheless. Pointing out that more than one in ten municipalities has not incorporated protection measures, he demanded that the government give up starting the operation of the My Number system.

Past related articles:
> JCP Takahashi: ‘My Number’ system shouldn’t come into force amid pension data leak investigation [June 19, 2015]
> Leak of personal information about public pensions overturns basis of ‘My Number’ system [June 2, 2015]