【Aging, safety net and fiscal crisis in Japan】No.246: The spread of My Number Card is not proceeding as the government expected

As explained in Column No.171, the government has been operating the 'My Number System' since January 2016, whereby all citizens are given a personal number. This is "the social infrastructure to improve administrative efficiency, enhance public convenience, and realize a fairer and more just society." The government asked citizens to apply for the issuance of a My Number Card to enhance the use of My Number and achieve the purpose of the system. Although the government expected 60 million cards to be issued in March 2018, there were only 19.1 million card holders as of January 2020 (Figure 1).

In response to this, the government used their plan to provide each citizen with JPY 100,000 (US$ 926) for the COVID-19 crisis to encourage use of the My Number System, by announcing that those with a My Number Card would be able to get the sum faster than those without. However, once online application for the benefit procedure began, the card was found to be slower than getting the money through a paper application by mail. There are three reasons for this. First, a large number of people applying for the My Number Card rushed to local government offices, and those offices were no longer able to function. Second, many people who already had a My Number Card had forgotten their personal identification number (PIN), also rushed to local government offices. Third, judging the accuracy of the input information when the holder of a My Number Card processes on the Internet is a manual task. As a result, public confidence in the My Number Card system has been severely impaired, and the spread ratio of the card has not increased as a result of the JPY 100,000 benefit.

Figure 1 Spread status of My Number Card