Diet Enacts Bills to Promote My Number System

Jiji Press

11:00 JST, June 3, 2023

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The Diet on Friday enacted bills designed to promote the use of 12-digit My Number personal identification numbers as well as My Number cards.

The bills were endorsed at a plenary meeting of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, following approval by the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, in late April.

The current health insurance cards will be abolished in autumn next year for integration into My Number cards. The bills call for, among other things, certificates to be issued to people who have yet to obtain My Number cards so that they can receive necessary medical treatment covered by health insurance programs.

The use of My Numbers will be expanded from conventional three areas-social security, taxation and disaster response—to procedures for obtaining and renewing qualifications such as barber’s and architect’s licenses, thus eliminating the need for applicants to submit residence certificates and other documents to administrative authorities to reduce their burdens.

A special system will be introduced to facilitate the registration of bank accounts linked to My Numbers to which public benefits are sent from the central and local governments.

Specifically, bank accounts that have already been reported to administrative authorities will be automatically registered with the Digital Agency as accounts for receiving such public benefits if the account holders do not show their disagreement to the registration within a certain period.

A string of problems have occurred for the My Number system, such as linking bank account information to My Numbers of someone else and providing reward points that are given to those who obtain My Number cards to different people.