Tuesday, September 6th 2022

Japanese Government Ends its Floppy and CD-ROM Obsession in the Age of Online Forms

by
btarunr
 Discuss (34 Comments)
Ever wondered why optical disc drives and floppy drives are still a thing in Japan? Turns out that government forms require Japanese citizens and businesses to mail in their data (forms, electronic attachments, etc.,) in physical media such as floppy disks, CD-ROMs, or MD cards (a floptical memory card)! They could also submit USB flash drives, but why would you give away a $5 flash drive when you could keep an optical- or floppy drive handy for when you have any business with your government? Rather use cheaper consumable storage media? Sharing information with the government over the Internet is forbidden for security reasons. Japan is finally changing this policy. Under the new policy, every citizen gets a unique identification number, called MyNumber, and can fill up online forms. Electronic attachments can finally be securely uploaded to an online database.
Source: TechARP

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34 Comments on Japanese Government Ends its Floppy and CD-ROM Obsession in the Age of Online Forms

#1
Hyderz
hehe, i think they still be using fax
Posted on Reply
#2
Unregistered
Hyderzhehe, i think they still be using fax
They do. We need someone to keep using this technology, how else are we going to preserve it.
#3
1d10t
It thought Japan already living high-tech with Gundam flying around and people just teleporting.
Posted on Reply
#4
ZoneDymo
Hyderzhehe, i think they still be using fax
Thing is here, you can fax a legally signed document that is valid whereas an email would not be.
Sadly Fax is not supported anymore and yes I say sadly because it honestly is handy for such occasions
Posted on Reply
#5
JoniISkandar
Their "Senpai" culture is too deep

in today digital world they still selling Magzine, CD and using old tech such as Fax

The young generation did not have chance to give idea, they must follow their senpai off old boomer
Posted on Reply
#7
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
ARFBlu-ray Disc is the best :)


Blu-ray - Wikipedia
Why would you use a Blu-ray to send the government a few PDFs and spreadsheets totaling 900 KB?
Posted on Reply
#8
Readlight
My 4G internet can download only one DVD disk in one hour. USB 1 speed.
Posted on Reply
#9
MentalAcetylide
btarunrWhy would you use a Blu-ray to send the government a few PDFs and spreadsheets totaling 900 KB?
He's just being obtuse. Personally, I find those discs to be a pain in the ass because any kind of scratch or nick on them ruins it. My one music CD needs to be replaced just because of a couple 0.5mm scratches.
Posted on Reply
#10
Chomiq
Hyderzhehe, i think they still be using fax
Don't forget the personal seals.
Posted on Reply
#11
Hyderz
ChomiqDon't forget the personal seals.
i think personal seals useful, each person has their own unique seals, they use it for govt docs..
Posted on Reply
#12
lemonadesoda
btarunrWhy would you use a Blu-ray to send the government a few PDFs and spreadsheets totaling 900 KB?
Why send PDFs and spreadsheets when you can send them a video of you completing the forms by hand and then hold up the completed forms to the camera. With ta-da music /sarc
Posted on Reply
#13
Ferrum Master
ZoneDymoThing is here, you can fax a legally signed document that is valid whereas an email would not be.
Sadly Fax is not supported anymore and yes I say sadly because it honestly is handy for such occasions
Have you ever heard of electronic signing? We each have our personal citizenship ID capable of doing so via an smart ID app or directly via card reader and browser extension. Hello 2022.
Posted on Reply
#14
Vayra86
Ferrum MasterHave you ever heard of electronic signing? We each have our personal citizenship ID capable of doing so via an smart ID app or directly via card reader and browser extension. Hello 2022.
Exactly, and even data transparency seems to slowly become a thing. We have the EU to thank for moving this forward.

The ideal situation is that you have personal access to the same data government uses for / on you, similarly for medical and all other things that matter, and that you can choose who to disclose what to. That's how digital trust needs to work.
Posted on Reply
#15
hat
Enthusiast
Interesting... it's been ages since I've seen a floppy. I suppose it would work for sensitive documents, but these days I'd be worried that a floppy wouldn't be large enough to handle said forms, unless it's literally a .txt file. Fancier word processing applications and such have gotten heavier over the years, and 1.44MB may not be enough...
Posted on Reply
#16
Ferrum Master
hatInteresting... it's been ages since I've seen a floppy. I suppose it would work for sensitive documents, but these days I'd be worried that a floppy wouldn't be large enough to handle said forms, unless it's literally a .txt file. Fancier word processing applications and such have gotten heavier over the years, and 1.44MB may not be enough...
You would be surprised about the scale of the industrial devices still using it. As long the production line runs, nothing should or will change.
Posted on Reply
#17
Wirko
Ferrum MasterYou would be surprised about the scale of the industrial devices still using it. As long the production line runs, nothing should or will change.
I'm surprised, I thought they've been largely replaced by floppy drive emulators. Is it even possible to buy good quality FDs and FDDs these days?
Ferrum MasterHave you ever heard of electronic signing? We each have our personal citizenship ID capable of doing so via an smart ID app or directly via card reader and browser extension. Hello 2022.
As it appears, the Japanese have heard of that:
www.pandadoc.com/electronic-signature-law/japan/
In 2000, Japan first passed The Electronic Signatures and Certification Business Act. This law determined that eSignatures may be used to sign general business contracts. The law also states that electronic signatures are admissible in court, though both parties may be required to submit additional proof.

In regards to electronic signatures, Japan has a tiered legal model. This means that it recognizes qualified electronic signatures (QES) as a distinct type of signature and gives it the same legal weight as a handwritten signature.
... but they seem to not approve of this new tech.
Posted on Reply
#18
Sithaer
I'm not sure which is worse, this or how my country still handles official/government related things for the most part.
Here we still use paper form for most of that stuff and good luck if you lose any of it when some bullshit issue happens years down the line and you need to dig a specific paper out of your 'collection'.
Thats the reason why my parents have an entire big drawer full of such papers, sure theres some slow improvements in this area to make it online/digital based but if you want to be safe/sure then better keep the paper form.

If my mother wasn't keeping all that crap then we would have quite some problem a few years ago when we got told to pay some extra taxes/bills that we weren't supposed to, my mother found all the papers related to that dating years back and sent the copies in and that fixed the issue. 'which they barely even responded to, only that its not needed then not even an excuse or anything like oh we fucked up on our end'
Posted on Reply
#19
ymdhis
MD cards (a floptical memory card)
Correction: MD stands for Minidisc. It was a semi-popular hi-fi format in the late 90s (it was primarily made for recording music), pushed by Sony, but mp3 players killed it overnight. In Japan it was around for a lot longer, you could buy actual albums on MD even in the 2010s.

Technically it is a magneto-optical media and it is the size of a card, but come on, editors of a tech site should be aware of the format.
1d10tIt thought Japan already living high-tech with Gundam flying around and people just teleporting.
They did build an actual life size Gundam but it's more like a statue, it can move its body but can't really walk around.
Posted on Reply
#20
Count von Schwalbe
ymdhisCorrection: MD stands for Minidisc. It was a semi-popular hi-fi format in the late 90s (it was primarily made for recording music), pushed by Sony, but mp3 players killed it overnight. In Japan it was around for a lot longer, you could buy actual albums on MD even in the 2010s.

Technically it is a magneto-optical media and it is the size of a card, but come on, editors of a tech site should be aware of the format.
Hey, I have a couple of those in a drawer somewhere...
And one of these:


I read up on those; they only store audio data (!) How tf do you put signatures in an audio format? You have to be the one reading it and they match voice waveforms?
Posted on Reply
#22
Mysteoa
Hyderzi think personal seals useful, each person has their own unique seals, they use it for govt docs..
They also buy a replacement from the dollar store, when they forgot theirs. So not really useful and not hard to forge.
Posted on Reply
#23
R-T-B
ZoneDymoThing is here, you can fax a legally signed document that is valid whereas an email would not be.
eDocUSign says hello.
Posted on Reply
#24
Matrix28au
Boeing 747s still use the floppy disk for firmware updates. So I don't think you can get rid of them completely.
Posted on Reply
#25
Divide Overflow
The US nuclear launch system still used antiquated floppy drives until just a few years ago.
Posted on Reply
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