Apple to allow iPhones to function as My Number cards

Those with a My Number will be able to use their smartphone in place of the card when interacting with public service providers like their municipal or tax office.

All a person's transactions including commuting data and other cashless transactions could be increasingly scraped. The possibilities for data leakage are endless.

Not good news for the many who are getting by in this economy with labor that is more or less off the books and already have to deal with a more and more granular invoice system.

Meanwhile , LDP bigwigs and corporate insiders will continue to do things the old-fashioned way with envelopes of cash passed individually or through intermediaries, avoiding all those troublesome bureaucratic tax hassles.

What could possibly go wrong, eh? I cannot understand why anyone would welcome this.

Under the My Number ID card system, launched in 2016, a 12-digit number is issued to each resident of Japan to centralize a range of personal data, such as tax and social security information.

So, a product Made In China, is able to get personal info about every resident in Japan.

Including dissidents of the communist dictatorship ccp.

Someone getting a ticket in your name is approaching the realm of possibility.

They'll be including the health insurance card info with this as well, right? And my library card? And my point card for the local grocery shop? Oh! And my Blockbuster card!! What else am I missing??

Easier? Well, it would be difficult to make using these things any harder.

The whole system is badly thought out. The cards have a printed expiration date on them, and when that passes, you go to the ward office and they stamp the front with a new date using a rubber ink stamp.

Then, when you use it on line, and something asks for the expiration date of the card, you have to type in the old one printed on the card, not the real one stamped on. So you have to enter an expiration date that is already in the past. Crazy.

If they implement this correctly into Apple Wallet like they do for some US driving licenses, then I welcome the improvement. If they do it the Japanese way, with some BS custom App that comes with advertisements and constant popups, then yeah - nah.

Big Brother is rapidly becoming a reality. What a visionary George Orwell was.

Did they already fix the glitches in MyNumber Card? Ready to face a new set of unknowns?

This is great news. One less damn card to have in my wallet.

What has the uptake of the system been like for Android phones?

Its just a national insurance number, so I don't have a problem with MyNumber over privacy. I like being able to check my pensions etc. online.

The main weakness of almost every security system is key management. If you put this on your phone, you'd better manage your phone properly. Don't leave it on a train or have your name and birthday as your passcode, etc.

fwiw, I have a Huawei phone without an NFC chip, so I can't use My Number on my own phone. I have to use a e-Tax card reader and my PC.

Sure!

ALL my financial, tax and personal information just waiting for that special hacker, slip up or staff failure.

what could possibly go wrong?

fwiw part two, but the UK has an upcoming election where voters must present ID to vote. The range of usable IDs is very wide for old people, including bus passes etc., but is quite limited for young people and includes things like driving licenses young people increasingly don't have. This MyNumber thing on a phone can be used as official ID in Japan.

For anyone saying I am being melodramatic, Boris Johnson himself was refused at a polling station in the recent local government elections for lack of ID.

I’m against all my private information, being prone to hacking, on my phone!

Invasion of privacy much? No thanks, you can shove this rediculous idea.

It will be a personal decision and the physical card will remain valid. Not everyone has an iPhone.

For anyone saying I am being melodramatic, Boris Johnson himself was refused at a polling station in the recent local government elections for lack of ID.

He forgot his ID, and later returned with correct photo ID so that he could vote.

The new rules requiring photo ID to vote were introduced by Johnson's government in the Elections Act 2022. So, he basically thought the rules, that he introduced, didn’t apply to him, or he forgot that he introduced them?

The government is also set to scrap the current health insurance certificates and integrate them on My Number cards in December, meaning everyone in Japan would be required to obtain the cards because the country's health insurance system covers all residents.

It also aims to incorporate driver's licenses into the system by March 2025

Integration of functions is okay but scrapping other cards/certs is probably not ideal. If you lose the mynumber card /phone or they're damaged youll be losing other services /functions as well until replaced

Other countries have been using such a system for decades and yes, there are risks, that's inevitable. Just treat this card as you would any of your other cards (drivers license, bank/credit cards, library card, Happening Bar cards) and you'll be fine. We're all adults, we can't blame the government for our own stupidity and carelessness. Just be smart.

in my country in Europe we can temporary lock our SSN via official Gov. app. When they implemented this in 2023 a lot of citizens jumped on it. I am one of them. This is to prevent from unauthorised use of your identity to open bank account, take a loan or buy house, phone subscription etc.

From June all banks will be required to check whether your ID is blocked or not. It happens already actually. When I applied for CC, the bank asked me to unlock my SSN for the time of processing application. Once I did and they confirmed we could continue. When everything has been done I opened the app, clicked one button "Lock my SSN" and voila. It can also be set to unlock for certain time and then autolock itself. Since almost none of other W. European countries have such system I wonder how long it takes in Japan to implement something similar

It will be a personal decision and the physical card will remain valid. Not everyone has an iPhone.

Android already has this functionality. Although still have to use NFC to swipe the card each time I login. And their custom app sucks balls btw. End up having to swipe the damned card multiple times in one session, and put in your four digit code each time you access another part of the app. It's just nonsense. Buggy as hell too.

They really need to learn how to make things simple and easy to use. Just like banking apps. Unbelievably overly complicated and buggy. And security overly done almost to the point of making it pointless to try and use the damned thing

Using My Number on the phone is too much of a hassle and complicated to make it practicable. I gave up.

If and when the government catches up with Scammers and Hackers, only then this and other personal data storage apps. will be safe to use.

Android already has this functionality. Although still have to use NFC to swipe the card each time I login. And their custom app sucks balls btw. End up having to swipe the damned card multiple times in one session, and put in your four digit code each time you access another part of the app. It's just nonsense. Buggy as hell too.

If you have to swipe the card, that means you didn't set up your Android to function as a My Number card. Once you set it up, you no longer have to swipe the card to log into "MyNa portal". As far as I know, that is all you can use it for as of now.

If and when the government catches up with Scammers and Hackers, only then this and other personal data storage apps. will be safe to use.

So true.