Did the government forget about it?
Or are they just waiting, to lull us into a false sense of security?
I don’t like the My Number (personal identifier) system. I have written about it here, here, here, here, and here. You might even say I have a slight obsession with it.
From what little I know about the system, it seems poorly thought-out, insecure, has vague goals and great potential for abuse.
I still try to avoid using my My Number where possible. My employer has asked for it twice, I ignored them and nothing has happened.
Several financial institutions in Japan and abroad have asked for it as part of the process of opening an account, and I have provided it in order to get the application approved.
The latest is the notice below from Rakuten Securities:
Basically it says if you want to have a NISA account with us next year you have to upload your My Number documents by the end of September. Failure to do so will mean you will have to reapply to open your account from scratch.
That’s a pretty big stick. I don’t fancy redoing all the paperwork, and given how long it’s taking to get my iDeCo account opened, am not even sure it would be approved in time (saying nothing of the fact that you will definitely need to provide the My Number information in order to open a new account). Oh, well.
So that’s where I am with My Number. Has anyone had any other experiences? Can it be used for any administrative tasks yet? We were supposed to be able to do all our government paperwork in convenience stores, although I’m not sure I’d trust the seventeen-year-old clerks at my local Family Mart with anything important…
I actually had trouble with MyNumber , or actually the lack thereof. I was supposed to get a transfer with Western Union but was not able to withdraw it since I did not have the physical card (or thin piece of paper, I should say). Same thing for a postal office money wire. It seems the card, albeit without pictures, is now used as a form of ID when money is concerned.
With Rakuten Securities you can use their iphone (and I assume android) app to register your mynumber. Instead of sending off a photocopy or whatever, the app uses character recognition to get your mynumber and it’s registered and confirmed within the day (at least it was when I did it).
I share your concerns, about My Number (what a stupid name BTW), but I’m sure it will eventually become necessary for all financial business. The point of course is to catch people that are evading the system….
I don’t mind the idea of a tax ID number. I worry about it being linked to jyuuminhyou, health records, credit cards, cellphones…
The point to me is how much ‘mission creep’ we can prevent through passive resistance…