Still don’t like it
So I got an email from my employer the other day (well, from the kyosai office at work, to be exact) about My Number. I thought the government might have forgotten about it, but clearly they haven’t.
In the email I received not one, not two, but three leaflets about how great, safe, and useful the My Number card (the plastic ones with the photos) are.
We’ve also written about My Number here, here, here, here, and here. Phew! That’s a lot of writing about a vague government registration system. You might even accuse me of being slightly obsessed with it 😉
So what is My Number again?
My Number is the cutesy name the government gave to the 個人番号, or personal identification number. It’s a relatively new system to make it easier to tie together people’s taxes, financial information, social security, and many other things. The system started a few years ago and has basically had a soft launch so far: My Number is required for international bank transfers and investment accounts, and is strongly preferred for taxes. It is largely optional for bank accounts and other uses at the moment.
And why don’t you like it?
Well, I have two main problems with the My Number system as it stands: its scope and its implementation.
If My Number was just a tax idetifier, like the National Insurance number in the UK or those used by many other countries I would not have anywhere near as much of a problem with it. I think it makes sense for countries to have tax identifiers, and for governments to make tax reporting and collection smoother.
What I don’t like is how the government seems to be trying to go way beyond that with the My Number system. So far we have seen plans to link it to health care, shopping, bank accounts, and a push for it to become a de facto national ID card.
The second problem I have is that the Japanese government and bureaucracy have shown themselves to be fairly poor at cybersecurity and keeping databases full of personal information safe. The more things My Number is tied into, the more of a problem it will be when the government loses millions of records.
I’m not the only person that doesn’t like My Number, and the reason for the soft launch so far is that many people are refusing to use it. As long as that continues it will be difficult for the government to mandate My Number use.
To be fair there is one thing I do like about My Number: they print your alias on it. Mine is in kanji, so I was disappointed when it was removed from the Alien Registration Card when they updated them.
What’s this latest thing?
Well, it seems as though it will be possile to use My Number cards instead of health cards from next year. Presumably this is desirable because they have photos on them and the health insurance cards do not.
When I first saw the email from my employer I feared they were going to force us to get My Number cards for health insurance purposes, but a more careful reading makes it clear that they are just going to sincerely ask for our cooperation. Heh.
But clearly this is just a glimpse of things to come. If the government is successful on selling enough people on the wonderful convenience of My Number cards I predict we’ll be asked to use them in more and more situations.
Do I need to do anything?
Not right now. This is just another option at the moment, although I suspect the plan is to replace health insurance cards completely in the future.
Personally I have a policy of not sharing my My Number (heh, that never gets old) unless I absolutely have to. I still haven’t given it to my employer, for example, despite repeated requests to. I have given it to my brokers, as they refused to open accounts without it. I also gave it to TransferWise and an organization I did some work for this year.
How do you feel about My Number? Did you already get a plastic My Number card?
It’s funny, that when I came to kuyakusho to get one (well, among other more important things), the madoguchi lady advised me against it. She said that as foreigner i’m perfectly fine with alien card and tsuchi card, while my number card will have to be renewed every 5or 7 years.
So I decided not to get it.
That is really interesting. Sounds like the person you talked to also doesn’t like the system 😉
(kind of makes it sound like the purpose of the My Number cards is as ID, and we already have photo ID, eh?)
But the card itself is really only kind of an universal ID plus alpha (as they say here :)), isn’t it? Kind of replacement of a passport, because not everyone in Japan has one.
And even if you don’t accept the plastic card, you are already “numbered”, gout your tsuchi card and in the system anyway.
So basically, what matters is whether you disclose your number to third parties or not, and not whether your have the card or not.
That is true *for the individual*. But for the system as a whole, once a large enough number of people have the cards, the government can start to mandate their use for various things.
If too few people have the cards, it would be impractical to do so. So there are collective consequences to getting the plastic card.
That is the reason the government is trying to come up with all these bribes and ways to make the photo ID cards seem attractive, because a lot of people have not bothered to apply for them.
Interesting! Same thing happened to me, except she didn’t give a reason. Perhaps they know something we don’t know?
Personally I wouldn’t mind having everything on one card. It can be a hassle sometimes, having to run around getting all those pieces of paper.
I think that in most cases where the My Number card is requested you can submit a copy of the initial notification card and other photo ID. So if you have other photo ID like a resident’s card there probably isn’t any need to get the actual card.
Is it actually possible to avoid giving your employer the number if you want them to handle taxes for you?
Yes. At the moment there is some pressure on the employer to submit My Number information for employees, but no penalty on individuals for not submitting.
Depending on your relationship with your employer, it may be difficult to refuse to submit the information.
In my case I have a pretty secure job with an enormous organization, so there has not been much in the way of negative consequences so far. I suspect many of my colleagues are doing the same thing.
You would have thought the My Number, Alien Registration, and Health cards would have a digital option by now like my JAF membership of even Suica etc. I have the JAF app downloaded onto my phone and use that instead of a physical card when necessary (for discounts in shops more than car breakdowns).
But I guess it’s partly because of the cyber-incompetence you mentioned in the post.
My employer (which has around 6000 employees) told us that it’s fine to refuse to give it; but that they submit a list of those who are refusing to the local tax office (in the city where the company is headquartered) a couple of times a year. Those who refused to submit had to reply to an email in writing saying that they understood this.
I understand why so many people feel unease over such systems, but as someone from a country that has already implemented a similar system to this (where you have a single number linked to everything), I feel pretty neutral about the whole thing.
However, I’m not planning on getting the card, since I heard you have to renew it everytime you renew your residence permission, until you have permanent residence, and that sounds like a pain. I’ve also heard some stories of other foreigners having problems with the renewal process, since they haven’t fully sorted it out (given no national has had to renew it yet).
I got one but only in the hopes it may help get a longer than 1 year visa…..
One thing I noticed not mentioned in this article is that the (plastic) MyNumber card is tied to your visa as foreigner.
Meaning, every time you get a new Resident Card (and maybe even change address) you have to go to your local ward office for them to add a new line on the MyNumber card. The problem is the card only has slots for about 3 updates.
My hopes are that if they keep only giving me 1 year visas they are going to have to start issuing me plenty of new plastic MyNumber cards every 3 years too.
So far I am 1/3 lines down in my card. One can only hope it works……. wish me luck haha
On the other hand it does have some uses for getting important documents from City Hall 24/7 at Kombini