41% of local leaders want My Number insurance card shift delayed

41% of local leaders want My Number insurance card shift delayed

Central government usually will be tone deaf with the actual reality, like what we've seen previously.

I personally think the MyNumber system is great. I want just one card for everything. I hope they incorporate the drivers license into it as well. There have been, what, a few thousand data breaches amongst the tens of millions of cards issued? It’s no big deal.

There have been, what, a few thousand data breaches amongst the tens of millions of cards issued? It’s no big deal.

Except when you are one of those few thousand and you have lost money or worse and then it is a big deal.

@david brent

personally think the MyNumber system is great. I want just one card for everything. I hope they incorporate the drivers license into it as well. 

Incorporate with driver license? So your health insurance will become cheaper when you have gold driving license, once it's downgraded because you've done traffic violation/accidents your health insurance will go back higher since they thought you are high risk. is that system you interested in? System that moving toward China social credit system.

https://mailmate.jp/blog/how-to-get-a-gold-license-in-japan

Don’t have my card yet, and it has not changed anything, as long as I can use actual cards

So your health insurance will become cheaper when you have gold driving license

Sounds good to me. I have zero problems with that. Then again, I'm a safe driver.

Except when you are one of those few thousand and you have lost money

Nobody lost money. A MyNumber card isn't an ATM card.

If you stole my MyNumber card right now and even if you rightly guessed my PIN, you would at best be able to get a some forms from the convenience store machine such as a 住民票. So you would know my address. Oh no, it's the end of the world!

Stop scaremongering.

and many areas with aging populations said resistance to __ is high.

Please fill the blank with any changes you can think of.

Please - it's 2023 and the Japanese are still arguing against digitalisation of information and more importantly, the best solution to combat widespread fraudulent use of others cards, most importantly to find out just who is receiving all those payments in all sections of society without payng due taxes.

Many western countries implemented their version of My Number decades ago - you employ somebody, you register their tax number and they also have to provide it themselves to their financial institutions and when they do any personal or economic business.

From co-worker gaijin English teachers getting paid non declared cash to do music in clubs in their free time to non Japanese youtubers and online streamers never declaring that income at tax time, to Japanese working eveywhere and avoiding tax - no compulsory My Number for all this results in a poor system of social support to name one reality.

Countries like Canada Australia and the UK have rafts of benefits and special payments that the Japanese will never have so long as they snivel about not wanting My Number. Plus health systems that are far cheaper or free. Keep whining about My Number and avoiding tax - couldn't believe a non-critical story here last year about Japanese people connected with the semi pro music industry refusing to give details of My Number and bleating about it.

See, this is why you can't have nice things from the government in Japan, widespread fraud and tax evasion as an everyday thing. My Number shouldn't be postponed just because too many Japanese and gaijin like their fraud and evasion and kid themselves it's right because it's 'chotto'.

scrap my number!!

See, this is why you can't have nice things from the government in Japan, widespread fraud and tax evasion as an everyday thing. My Number shouldn't be postponed just because too many Japanese and gaijin like their fraud and evasion and kid themselves it's right because it's 'chotto'.

Spot on. 99% of the Japanese people who don't want MyNumber are just petrified of anything "new" in their lives. One reason why the country is still stuck in the 1970s.

It’s a competition who will get all the private information from Japanese people and utilize it. I think America, China, Russia and Ukraine and maybe the Netherlands who will get all those private information?

Bad idea.

Yeah, and while they are at it, do a better job at letting people get FREE new cards when it's YOUR fault for the IC chips not working correctly!

My Number has its growing pains but it's illogical to say therefore there shouldn't be an updated card in the contemporary world of digitalized information that also deals way better with healthcard fraud and tax evasion.

It saves the continual waste of paper/card - the city halls issue millions of paper cards, and there's no way of knowing who is presenting the health inusrance card if there is a female name for example and a female of approximately the same demographical appearance uses it. City halls across Japan spend needless time using paper, processing paper and issuing paper.

And as for the tax evasion that wise heads like Kono know has to be stopped, it will be easier for the NTA to find out just how all those businesses are stiffing other Japanese and gaijin. Free aint free - somebody pays for it. So in the music scene in Shibuya, for example, those gaijin and Japanese musicians, rappers etc getting cash in hand to perform mean a loss in the social system. That money adds up, don't know why the NTA hasn't started inspecting that part of the entertainment industry.

Incorporate with driver license? So your health insurance will become cheaper when you have gold driving license, once it's downgraded because you've done traffic violation/accidents your health insurance will go back higher since they thought you are high risk. is that system you interested in? System that moving toward China social credit system.

That isn't how health insurance works in Japan, at all. The premiums are based solely on income and nothing more. You must not live in Japan.

The most prominent administrative gaffe in recent times, that guy who was given an entire town's Covid relief payments, all four thousand and whatever times, was not due to My Number. About ten years ago, the government admitted thousands of paper records of pension contributions had been lost. Compared to these, the issues so far with My Number have been very minor.

The system won't be perfect and is probably handing tasty fees to amakudari at companies like Paypay, but as other posters indicate, the simple existence of a National Insurance number equivalent or Social Security number equivalent should not send people into a tizzy. It is probably long overdue. I would hope local government folks moaning about it have spotless records in dealing with poverty, old people's mobility, non-attendence of school, and other important issues in their jurisdictions.

If you stole my MyNumber card right now and even if you rightly guessed my PIN, you would at best be able to get a some forms from the convenience store machine such as a 住民票. So you would know my address. Oh no, it's the end of the world!

It might be when someone gets a hold of your personal information and uses it to obtain a credit card and runs up a lot of debt or perpetrates some other form of ID theft. Jesus, David, relax! Few people are saying scrap the system; most of us are just against the pre-set date for implementation made by Taro Konno and his ilk before the bugs are worked out. Obviously My Number will be a part of our future but it needs some work before it is.

just another "unfinished" product

A while back there was a lawmaker promoted to Cybersecurity Minister who admitted he did not know why he got the job. He did not know how to use a PC.

Im sure here are a few more like that in the early planning of the My Number card.

I saw a comment yesterday from a guy who said he was a dentist who did home visits. At the moment he takes details from patients health card and gets paid. He worried that there is no mobile option for the my number card and will have to stop home visits. I’m sure there are other things like that that have still not been thought of.

Why should I put my private data at risk of fraud and manipulation in leaks that have already been seen to occur?

I don’t need to do

that for the minimal health problems that I have

@Blacksamurai

Countries like Canada Australia and the UK have rafts of benefits and special payments that the Japanese will never have so long as they snivel about not wanting My Number. Plus health systems that are far cheaper or free. Keep whining about My Number and avoiding tax - couldn't believe a non-critical story here last year about Japanese people connected with the semi pro music industry refusing to give details of My Number and bleating about it.

The countries you mentioned above don't have national identity cards.

It might be when someone gets a hold of your personal information and uses it to obtain a credit card and runs up a lot of debt or perpetrates some other form of ID theft.

More scaremongering. Would never happen. They wouldn't have my inkan for one thing. They also wouldn't know where I work; both necessary for getting a new credit card.

My Number is used in these three areas; social insurance, tax, and disaster countermeasures.

Would be very convenient if they wanted to conscript people! The government would already know the health condition of conscripts without a health check!

@mountainpear - I know what you're saying but it aint as relevant as you think.

Doing some research on use of personal identification numbers for tax in those countries turns up some interesting facts about how they help to tackle black economies and cheats earning regular incomes who ride on everybody else. Those cheats are happy to slide away from declaring but then expect governments to give them what they think are their dues.

Canada, Australia, the UK and NZ have been on the eightball for decades about citizens and residents identifying themselves correctly when they open bank accounts, for example, withdraw money, get employed, do their taxes. Why were criminals in Japan able to loot money from another person's account, using their passbook for all that time?

It's easy - no TIN - Tax Identifcation Number, no Tax File Number, etc in operation. That's why now the Japanese are finding out that when their government doesn't use those kinds of compulsory tax IDs, tax IDs will be integrated with health insurance, etc, in a national ID.

We're not talking about kids with lemonade stalls or somebody sweeping a yard for an old person. It was interesting to talk to an Australian accountant who told me that his govt back in the 80s targeted individuals opening bank accounts under fake names, businesses lacking transparency, employers not paying correct wages/benefits, individuals and families not declaring income, businesses doing the same. The tax file number proved to be a big part of the solution and yep that was back in the 1980s.

Those countries don't have a national ID number but they don't have to - they've been strict in most cases about requiring proof of identity for important and other kinds of transactions. The social benefits available far outweigh anything available to Japanese people and that's how you build up your system - the base is ensuring people pay tax and don't run with false identities to avoid it or steal another person's money at the bank.

@Blacksamurai The biggest tax avoiders are big businesses like Toyota, not some guy DJing in Shibuya! And do you seriously think the government is going to use increased tax revenue to help the citizens of Japan! Lol!

Strange how your off topic comments about tax evasion aren't moderated considering the original article is about the merger of the health insurance card and the My Number card,

My Number is used in these three areas; social insurance, tax, and disaster countermeasures.

And private information collection.

Yeah yeah mountainpear - the My Number card is going to be linked to health insurance as part of a wider agenda to use the number to prevent tax evasion and fraud as well as health insurance fraud. As well as health insurance being paid in a timely way. And health insurance is a tax, a tax paid each month so that's all relevant.

You can lol all you like, it doesn't make facts disappear. No dude, I don't cheerlead for those people in the entertainment industry cheating by not declaring tax whether it's the club owner, their promoters and the people they employ. Some people make more than juman en for a night's work including DJs.

Why should residents and citizens who pay say Oh, that's cool cause corporations cheat more than they do. The live music scene evades a lot of taxation and along with all the other industries that do, contribute to an undermined tax base that could be used to improve the life of ordinary people in Japan. Maybe you're one of those gaijin who are online crying about having to pay health insurance, pension and other taxes while buying expensive model cars and getting food delivered by Uber.

Unplanned Data disclosure is rife in Japan.

Misuse and loss caused by those other than the cardholder will be compensated,right?

No, I didn’t think so…