The only way to solve the “Mynacard” problem, according to Cybozu President Aono.

I don’t understand the sense of boasting “you can issue a resident card at a convenience store” while calling it a digital society!

Troubles related to the My Number system have not ceased since Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared that he would “dispel the anxiety of the people. Nevertheless, the scope of use of my number and my number card will be expanded with the passage of the revised My Number Law.

Without resolving the issue of My Number, should the My Number Card be pushed forward for widespread use? What does Mr. Yoshihisa Aono, president of Cybozu, an IT company, who has long advocated the need for a my number card, think about the current situation?

He said, “The situation is turning out as we had expected.

Mr. Aono responded as expected.

What are the causes of My Number-related problems, such as erroneous registration of accounts to receive public money and errors in linking pension records?

Aono said, “Looking at each problem individually, I believe that each has its own cause. The reason why various problems keep occurring is because the system was created without careful consideration. Troubles are bound to occur in a system, but if someone is not good at designing a system, problems are bound to occur.

The core system supporting the My Number system was designed and developed by five major IT companies that were ordered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Japan Local Information Systems Organization (J-LIS), which is under the jurisdiction of the Digital Agency.

The My Number system is complex in nature. Of course, the contractors who received the orders may have problems, but the problem is that the My Number system, which makes the system complicated, was created by politicians who do not understand IT well. I think the system ran without that system being properly developed.”

Digital Minister Taro Kono told the Diet that the series of problems “were caused by a variety of factors, including errors in paperwork, and are not attributable to the My Number system itself. This is an assertion that the problem is not with the My Number system, but with human error.

For example, the process of linking the information on the MyNumber card with the information on the health insurance card is done manually by the staff in charge. While it is certainly possible that a mistake could have been made, if a system had been in place to detect input errors, the linking error could have been prevented.

The question is: “The government should have created a digital system, so why does manual work still occur? The website of the miner card says something like, “Administrative procedures will be simplified for the convenience of the public,” but before that, the burden on administrative staff is increasing. This means that the Mynacard is not in line with the concept.

The government calls the miner card “a passport for the digital society,” but …….

The government calls it a “passport to the digital society. Why is it necessary to “print out” the resident card? Isn’t the government trying to make people carry a Myna Card in order to eliminate paper certificates?　It would be convenient if people could just show their cards on their smartphones and complete the procedure without having to print out their certificates, but in the end, the number of cards people have will only increase, not decrease the amount of paper. I don’t understand the sense of boasting that you can issue a certificate of residence at a convenience store while calling it a digital society.”

It is far cheaper and more convenient to create one from scratch using the latest technology!

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, there were approximately 88.15 million miner cards in possession as of June 30. The delivery rate to the population is 70.0%, but one wonders how many citizens have acquired a MyNumber card because of the convenience it offers.

I have always wondered about the necessity of having a physical card in order to use the My Number system. There are four different passwords for the digital certificate on the Minor Card, and you are supposed to use them for different purposes, but if you forget the password, you have to go to the local government office and go through the password resetting procedure. If you lose your card, you have to go to the local government office to go through the procedure. It goes against convenience, doesn’t it?

We have three young children in our family, and we have lost our children’s health insurance cards twice so far. If we can only use the miner’s insurance card, we will be in great trouble if we lose it. I have to go back and forth to the city office with my children. Instead of being more convenient, it will be more of a burden.

In the first place, it is useless to abolish the health insurance card, which is already widely used, and replace it with the miner card. I don’t see the need for a miner’s insurance card at all.”

Following the health insurance card, the driver’s license is scheduled to be integrated with the miner card by the end of fiscal year 2012.

The government is trying to consolidate the personal information that forms the basis of our lives onto the myna card, but if we lose it, we will not be able to do anything until it is reissued. We should stop using the miner card and redesign it to be based on the smartphone premise. With a smartphone, it’s hard to lose it, and even if you drop it, you can find it with the GPS tracking function.”

A service that allows Android smartphones to carry the function of the electronic certificate of the miner card began in May, and some functions of the miner card can be used with smartphones, but …….

The prerequisite for using the card’s functions on a smartphone is that the user must have a plastic Mynacard.”

It appears that the government intends to introduce a new mina card during ’26, 10 years after the mina card was first issued. Digital Minister Taro Kono has even mentioned that “a new reader may be needed” for the introduction.

He even mentioned that “we may need new readers” when introducing the cards. It is better to build from scratch using today’s latest technology. It is by far the cheapest and most convenient way to do it. This is a given in the digital industry.”

The biggest problem with the miner card is that politicians don’t have the courage to stop.

The biggest problem I want to point out about Minor Card is the inability of the organization to stop this failed project. I see this situation overlapping with that of Japan when it could not stop a war that it could not win and went on to defeat.

If the government does not recognize the failure and make a decision to stop the project, the damage will continue to grow. I think the biggest problem with the Mynacard is that politicians don’t have the courage to reset it.”

Following the string of confusion surrounding the My Number and Minor Card, opinion polls conducted by media outlets in July showed that the Cabinet’s approval rating had fallen to the 20-30% range. In a survey by Kyodo News, 74.7% of respondents said that the government’s comprehensive review of the Mynacard issue, to be conducted by fall, “will not solve the problem.

The most important thing the public can do would be to express their intention that they will not use their Mynacard. If the number of citizens who return their cards continues to increase, the government may eventually have no choice but to give up.

Yoshihisa Aono was born in Ehime Prefecture in 1971. After graduating from the Department of Information Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Osaka University, he worked for Matsushita Electric Works (now Panasonic) before founding Cybozu in Ehime Prefecture in 1997 and becoming President and Representative Director in 2005. He is the author of “Selective” Married Couple Surname (Poplar Shinsho), “I Only Thought about the Team” (Diamond Inc.), and other books. (Diamond Inc.) and others.