TOKYO, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Multiple serious glitches related to Japan's "My Number" national identification card have highlighted the government's predicament to modernize its public administration systems through its digital agency.
As recently as Friday, Takeaki Matsumoto, Japan's minister of internal affairs, had to publicly apologize for a points program associated with the My Number card mistakenly awarding points to the wrong recipients.
The system error is the latest in a string of more serious cases, such as those involving private medical information and bank account mixups, among others.
Japan's minister of digital affairs Taro Kono said on Tuesday that an investigation was underway to check all bank account information linked to the problematic My Number card system, following some bank information stored on some people's ID cards being found to have been linked to other's information.
Previous issues raising questions about the government's digitalization efforts included thousands of cases of My Number cards being incorrectly registered, and, in some cases, individuals' medical information being accessed by other cardholders.
Such private medical information that was accessed through the system's portal site included prescription medication details and data related to medical expenses, the health ministry said.
Other glitches plaguing the system, initially introduced to streamline multiple government services and information keeping, involved people using their My Number cards to print out their official residence certificates at convenience stores, only to receive other people's official documents.
Following the multiple cases of mistaken residence certificates being issued, the government jumped, not for the first time, to defend the system, highlighting a single glitch, rather than more fundamental issues with the overall system.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno at the time said the error was down to an application software problem, not an issue with the My Number cards themselves or the information-sharing systems technology required for their use.
Matsuno's comments came on the heels of the government's digital agency being forced to ask the system's provider, Fujitsu Japan, to halt the issuance of official documentation at convenience stores, further stoking fears among current cardholders as the government intends to forge ahead with its plans for all citizens in the near future to use the My Number card system.
The original My Number program was instituted to combine multiple governmental administrative systems into a single one, which issued a 12-digit ID number to every citizen and resident, including foreign nationals in Japan.
In 2016, the My Number Card system was introduced to further streamline the process through digitalization, with the physical card embedded with an IC chip.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said that the cards are an essential "passport" for a digital society. He has promoted the system as being able to improve administrative efficiency, public convenience and become the basis of a "fairer and more just society."
But since the introduction of the cards and the multiple glitches, including third-party supporting systems that store the highly sensitive data, concerns have and are growing over data leaks that could be exploited, people's identities stolen and overall privacy rights breached.
Multiple lawsuits linked to the My Number Card system have been filed with local courts around the country, with plaintiffs calling for the system to be suspended over concerns of privacy rights violations, a headache for the Japanese government and its push towards digitalization. ■
