Japan’s digital minister, who’s vowed to rid the bureaucracy of outdated tools from the hanko stamp to the fax machine, has now declared “war” on a technology many haven’t seen for decades -- the floppy disk.
The hand-sized, square-shaped data storage item, along with
similar devices including the CD or even lesser-known mini disk, are still
required for some 1,900 government procedures and must go, digital minister
Taro Kono wrote in a Twitter post Wednesday (Aug 31).
"We will be reviewing these practices swiftly,"
Kono said in a press conference on Tuesday, who added that Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida has offered his full support. "Where does one even buy a floppy
disk these days?"
Japan isn't the only nation that has struggled to phase out
the outdated technology - the US Defence Department only announced in 2019 that
it has ended the use of floppy disks, which were first developed in the 1960s,
in a control system for its nuclear arsenal.
Sony Group Corp. stopped making the disks in 2011 and many
young people would struggle to describe how to use one or even identify one in
the modern workplace.
Legal hurdles are making it difficult to adopt modern
technology like cloud storage for wider use within the bureaucracy, according
to a presentation by the government's digital taskforce dated Tuesday. The
group will review the provisions and plans to announce ways to improve them by
the year-end.
Kono, one of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's most
visible politicians who's often cited by voters as a contender to be prime
minister, has been an outspoken critic of bureaucratic inefficiencies due to
archaic practices, most notably the fax machine and the hanko, a unique, carved
red stamp that remains necessary to sign off on official documents like a
marriage licence. He tried to curb use of both when he was administrative
reform minister between 2020 and 2021, but the two are still widely used.
"I'm looking to get rid of the fax machine, and I still
plan to do that," he quipped at his press conference on Tuesday.
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