15,907 Mistakes Found over My Number Info Linkage

Jiji Press

14:50 JST, December 13, 2023

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The government said Tuesday that it has found a total of 15,907 mistakes in linking information to My Number personal identification numbers.

The government said it has completed personal identification checks for 82.06 million of the 82.08 million My Numbers subject to inspection.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reiterated that the government plans to abolish health insurance certificates in autumn 2024 for full integration into the My Number cards.

The government will take steps to promote the use of integrated My Number cards to ensure people will use them and feel their benefits, Kishida told officials who met to discuss the results of its comprehensive inspection of My Number information.

The mistakes include 7,553 cases of incorrect linkages of health insurance data discovered separately from the comprehensive inspection, the Digital Agency said.

The comprehensive inspection has found 1,142 cases of information linkage mistakes regarding health insurance, 119 cases regarding mutual aid pensions, 1,186 cases regarding bank accounts for receiving public benefits, 5,645 cases regarding disability certificates, 22 cases regarding welfare benefits and four cases involving income and resident taxes.

Checks are still underway on links between My Numbers and disability certificate data at five municipalities. They are expected to be completed this month.

The inspection covered 21 administrative processes regarding personal information accessible through the Mynaportal portal site for holders of the My Number card, such as the linking of My Numbers to tax and disability certificate information. It was conducted at 332 municipalities and one labor standards inspection office that were found to have used inappropriate methods to link information.

The Digital Agency and others have previously conducted inspections into three other administrative processes, including the linking of My Numbers to bank account information.

Meanwhile, a separate examination on health insurance data tied to My Number cards found some 1.39 million cases in which the names and addresses of holders did not match those on the basic resident register.

Some of the mismatch cases are believed to be the result of mistakes in the kanji characters used, while roughly 450 cases are estimated to be information linkage errors. Work to check the data is set to be completed by next spring.