Japan IDs All Its Citizens

Edis Krad writes "While RealID in the US is a threat whose implementation is a ways in the future, the Japanese long ago implemented something similar; and there has been very little complaint raised about it. The Juki Net (Residents Registration Network — link in Japanese) has been silently developing since 1992. The system involves an 11-digit unique number to identify every citizen in Japan, and the data stored against that ID covers name, address, date of birth, and gender. Many Japanese citizens seem to be oblivious that such a government-run network exists. Juki Net had a spotlight shone on it recently because a number of citizens around the country sued against it, citing concerns of information misuse or leakage. And while an Osaka court ruled against the system, the Japanese Supreme Court has just ruled it is not unconstitutional, on the grounds that the data will be used in a bona-fide manner and there's no risk of leakage. While there is a longstanding registration system for us foreigners in Japan, what astonishes me is how the government can secretly implement such a system for its citizens, and how little concern the media and Japanese citizens in general display about the privacy implications."

Is it that much of a deal?

I live in continental Europe and I have an ID card. I know that exactly the same style of ID cards exists in at least Belgium and Germany. Why is it a problem? You get to use it only when to prove that you're actually you. Like when voting and when I did an exam to try to become a state servant (I failed, if you really want to know.)

I also have a number that uniquely identifies me. It is the equivalent the social security number and it consists of my birthdate in format yyyymmdd followed by a three digit number. Unlike in the US, knowing this number means nothing. It's not secret... It isn't displayed on my ID card though.

Slashdot ID

I also have a number that uniquely identifies me.

Yeah, I have my own id too, it's 1066278.

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

It is the equivalent the social security number and it consists of my birthdate in format yyyymmdd followed by a three digit number. Unlike in the US, knowing this number means nothing.

Finland, and probably a lot of other countries have something very similar. Here it's ddmmyy-xxxc, where xxx is assigned in birth order with even for females and odd for males, c is a checksum character, and the dash can be (+|-|A) depending on century. These are assigned at birth, so everyone has one of these.

I just don't see how the database in TFA is any different from this or the multitude of population registries that exist all over the world. Can someone enumerate the problems with this, please?

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

Bulgaria is the same YYMMDDXXXC (Year, Month, Day, Unique ID, Checksum. It doubles up as social security number and a tax reference. It is also the reference used for any unpaid fines, property transfer, contracts, etc. This has the strange side effect that you have to pay all of your parking tickets before selling a car or buying a house for example. Otherwise you cannot register the contract with the notary and the transaction is null and void.

It also now have a proper cryptographic ID format (non-mandatory and opt-in) and you can sign any document with a digital signature.

You can also get any of your ID documents reissued in any police station in 24h and for 3h in Sofia. Everything is in the database.

At the same time the level of privacy and the level of ID theft risk is way lower than in the US or UK. There are controls on who has access to the database and for what purposes. You do not have to send "sufficient identifying information" every few months just to get things done and digging through your rubbish does not yield sufficient identifying information to steal your identity.

Overall - it is a classic example that there is nothing wrong with a correctly implemented national ID system. It can actually improve your privacy instead of eating into it.

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

Finland and Sweden was ahead in the whole census. Finland and Sweden started census in about middle of year 1600. and year 1750 already had every person in register.
At leat on start of year 2001, Finland and Denmark were only countries on world what could make census just with a computers and there were no need to go by door to door or using a mixed other kind databases together.

And at least on Finland, Civil register includes a lots of other information too than just name, address, phonenumber, education, marriage status. But it includes information of buildings and all kind other stuff what helps to build charts almost everything.

http://www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi/vrk/home.nsf/www/populationinformationsystem [vaestorekisterikeskus.fi]
http://www.maistraatti.fi/en/index.html [maistraatti.fi]
http://tilastokeskus.fi/index_en.html [tilastokeskus.fi]

And even that Finland collects this kind adata alots, most important thing is that there are laws for individuals to protect their indentity.

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

I AM an american, and all things aside, I don't really have a problem with a proper national ID system.

All this paranoia about IDs and numbers and such, I have to ask:

1. How many people over the age of 16 or so DON'T have a driver's license or state issued ID card? Heck, even students are getting them today in the form of school IDs. I was issued one in HS, never used it other than to get discounts at a few stores that had discounts for students. I had one for college. I have one for my job.

The problem with using the SSN is that it was never designed to be an ID. There just aren't safeguards on it. By law it WASN'T to be used for all the stuff we use it for today. We'd be better off issuing seperate ID numbers for stuff like credit reports - consisting of the two digit state abbreviation then a set of characters determined by the state. Put it on the ID card. Then, for non-face transactions, have a PIN in place to prove it's yours. To reset the PIN, you'd have to go to the appropriate office that would verify your identity.

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

My problem is that it's a single point of failure.

It's my understanding that they want to tie bank accounts, driver's license, social insurance / security (I'm Canadian), passport etc. to one single card.

If you lose this card you are completely fsck'd. And if someone wants to steal your identity all they have to do is either steal or forge your card. And before people say that forging cards is theoretically as difficult as forging a credit card I'll just point out that that's extremely little comfort. Forging credit cards is one of the most common credit card scams. All you need is an account number and the PIN and you can make a card to use in any ATM. It won't fool a person but it's not meant to. Since ATM machines can read credit cards all it needs is the magnetic stripe with the account # + PIN encoded on it. With systems designed in such a brain-dead way with a complete lack of thought put into security the idea of a real ID scares the crap out of me because idiots will be designing them and more idiots will be assuring the population that they're hack-proof.

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

It really isn't like that with national ID cards: you're not going to use an ID card with a picture that doesn't at least resemble you vaguely. Replacing a picture on a stolen card seems nigh to impossible to me.

Not so impossible my friend. [hackcanada.com]

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

The big issue with ID cards isn't that you get an ID card with a serial number, your name and photograph on it. The big problem (at least in the UK), is that all the government databases will be linked together using this information; *EVERTHING* from medical records, property ownership, car ownership, travel history, current residential location, employer, purchase histories (thank you private databases).

There is enough information available for any government employee to determine when you are on holiday or away on a business trip to know when to send their mates round to burgle your home.

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

Would you be comfortable if your card was part of an integrated system that included Belgium and Germany? That's the situation the US faces(in 3 ways: laws vary from state to state, the geographic area involved is large, and the number of people that a unified system needs to support is large). I'm not trying to say whether you should be uncomfortable or not, just pointing out that there are differences to account for when making the comparison.

My biggest objection to programs that unify information and improve database access is that it encourages people to use them in situations where it isn't actually necessary, which then extends problems with that database access into situations where it shouldn't be necessary.

An example would be the treatment that travelers who show identification at airports in the US receive - they are treated as being more 'legitimate' than people who are unwilling or unable to show id, and then subjected to a lower average level of scrutiny. The problem with this is that the cursory checks performed on the id aren't going to detect forgeries or falsely obtained official identification, making the whole process a pointless waste of time.

Falsely obtained official identification also limit the usefulness of using any documentation to 'prove that you are actually you'. An entire system is limited in reliability by the least trustworthy bureaucrat working in it.

Finally, a sort of joking example: Would you expect your wife to sleep with an imposter who had documents proving they were you, or would you expect her to scoff at the documents? Training people to trust the documents in similar situations is scary; I wish I had a better argument against it.

Re:Is it that much of a deal?

I'd say almost everywhere has something like the. In Australia there is a Tax File Number system. You don't HAVE to provided it when say, opening a bank or starting a new job, but if you don't you're simply taxed at the highest rate. IIRC it replaced a plan to have a national ID system, and it seems to be working out pretty well on a privacy level because it is only related to tax and financial aspects, which is where these system are actually needed and useful.

Oh noes! An 11-digit number!

Get real. You have to register yourself at your local city office, so the authorities already know all about you. You also have to have a medical insurance ID. You also need to be registered at the tax office.

Privacy concerns in this day and age are ridiculous. You haven't any.

Fighting the tide only works when you're on the shore. When you're at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, there isn't very much you can do.

Re:Oh noes! An 11-digit number!

BadAnalogyGuy said:

Fighting the tide only works when you're on the shore. When you're at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, there isn't very much you can do.

Good name!

Difference of culture

It most likely passed through with so few complaints because of how different the culture is there from here. Something like this might seem like the ridiculously obvious thing to do for them. You can't count on very body to think the same as Americans, for better and worse.

Orwell was British

I have often wondered what life would be like if we didn't have the phrases "Orwellian" or "mark of the beast" in our vocabulary? Is our life (in America) better, more free because of our mindset from reading Orwell? Or is it worse because our paranoia about becoming "orwellian" hampers real progress in using technology to improve our lives? Thus also "mark of the beast?" If it were not for the stigma (pun intended) of being subjugated to a totalitarian government/economic system, how much better could commerce and governance be with a "master table" of PIDs?

Go for it: List the pros or cons of each scenario... But just remember, all those pros go away when the people controlling the database go bad. And they do.

Japan != USA/Europe

The Japanese don't have such an irrational fear of databases and information. In part because of their culture (which is not so contaminated with outside influences such as cultures that most slashdot readers might be familiar with) and also in part because they are not subject to the US constitution (gasp, shock). Here's an idea: perhaps the Japanese are able to determine which laws they want? I know, a radical idea - they didn't even consult the UN before implementing this.

Re:Japan != USA/Europe

The Japanese don't have such an irrational fear of databases and information.

The Japanese have an irrational acceptance of authority and conformism.

Re:Japan != USA/Europe

The Japanese have an irrational acceptance of authority and conformism.

What's so irrational about it? They didn't always have such an acceptance. This is a country that has existed for thousands of years, the first couple thousand of which were spent in a state of near-constant civil war without any centralized government. It was only after a strong central government was formed - and further refined with our help - that they became a prosperous, peaceful country with one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Acceptance of authority and conformism has brought them peace, prosperity, high educational standards, low crime, good health and long life expectancy. They are no less "free" than we are, either. Their government does not wiretap their citizens' phone calls or endorse torture, and their taxes do not go to supporting a massive military industrial complex or a set of oil cartels. So in what way is their culture "irrational"? Especially in comparison to ours?

Accept the fact that not everybody thinks the way Americans do. We are not the center of the universe and the way we think is not the "right" way.

Japan != Anything you want to emulate

Their obsession with conformity has also graced them with the highest suicide rate in the world.

People miss the point of citing statistics like wealth and crime. Wealth and crime in it of themselves are worthless. Crime in particular is a silly stat to obsess over. If you want to eliminate crime, just knock everyone into a coma and keep them alive with feeding tubes. The reason why we want wealth and low crime is to bring about happiness. When your pursuit of these things fail to produce more happiness, you are failing. The real purpose of a government should be to bring about the greatest happiness for their citizens and sustain their happiness. All the wealth and low crime in the world won't make a damned bit of difference if you are so miserable you throw yourself off a bridge.

If the point of life is happiness, the Japanese fail spectacularly. The Japanese are roughly the last people in this world we should be seeking to emulate. Don't get me wrong, a lot of great things come out of Japan that I have met have been great people, but the emulation of their miserable and unhappy society ranks roughly last on my list of things to do.

To what extent is privacy cultural?

In reading this story, I wonder about how individuals raised in cultures different than my own (read: USA) view issues of personal privacy vs. common good. Broadly speaking, we in the states tend to defend a "rights" theory; that our personal rights can, in some cases, trump the good of society. However, the idea of a populace giving in some personal rights for those of the supposed good lies on the spectrum of utilitarianism; that by putting in place a universal ID, it's necessary to give up some personal rights, in order to protect the largest number of people.

But, I'd be interested to know about how others compare this issue to the various historical theories of ethics...

Different cultures, different standards

You're astonished that a completely different culture has different standards for privacy? The modern American conception of privacy is hardly universal, and it wasn't too long ago that things like your shopping habits couldn't be private because the people who sold to you all knew you personally.

Similar system in Costa Rica

As for us in Costa Rica (not Puerto Rico), in Central America (in the middle of the whole continent), an ID system called "cédula de identidad" has been used since some decades ago for all citizens (a Costa Rican is a citizen once he/she is 18 years old). A 9-digits number is related with full name, gender, date and place of birth. Recent "cedulas" even include a version of one's signature (recollected by a writing tablet). It is an necessary ID for every kind of (bureaucratic) transactions (voting at the national and local elections, signing in for a bank account, obtaining a driver licence, etc.). Most of us are not concerned about the privacy issue (specially because the Government itself isn't Orwellian at all).

privacy? welcome to the information age

Seriously people, it's the 21st century, the information age. Privacy does not exist. You WILL give your information to banks, governments, health care agencies, employers, etc. in order to function in this world. They in turn will eventually fsck up and disclose said information publicly. I'm in favor of regulations that provide recourse and stiff penalties for organizations that mishandle information. However, they won't always be enforcible and lobbyists will put in loop holes making them ineffective, that's just reality. In the information age, your identity is your face. You don't walk down the street wearing a mask, do you? No, you'd look pretty silly. Do you yell at the shop clerk to not look at your face? No, you'd be considered rude. Just shut up and get used to it. Your identity is already public. Your personal information is likely to end up public. The best thing you can do is keep up to date on your credit profile and not be an idiot about spreading your information any more than you must.

This is the Wrong Battle

I'm something as odd as a hardcore libertarian Swede. I moved to Silicon Valley in 1995, in small part because of that.

Like most other developed nations, Sweden has a system much like Japan's, that keeps track of who people are where they live. This results in vastly superior service to the citizens. You don't have to register to vote, you can get a passport in under an hour, and in general you only have to tell one governmental agency something once, and the others will also get the information on a need-to-know basis.

And here is my point:

The US government already knows everything about you. They even read your email and tap your phone at will. But since they have to pretend not to, we have to keep sending in the same information again and again, things take forever and are often done wrong. We have the worst of both worlds, with little privacy and little functioning services.

Americans fight this kind of system thinking they're protecting privacy. They're not. Their privacy is long gone, and they're just wasting their effort. If you have the energy to fight for freedom, use it where it counts. This, unfortunately, is not such a place.

Inevitable

Anonymity is just security via obscurity applied to people. Any IT person worth a damn knows security via obscurity is a terrible methodology; once broken, it can never be put back together, and worse, there's no way to know when it's been broken. Eventually, someone will come up with a way to correlate even the most obfuscated and separated data, and they may or may not tell you that they can do it.

Instead, rely on proven methods like encryption, legal assurances, and simple discretion about what you put in the public eye, with an expectation that public starts where your walls end. We're approaching a small-town expectation of privacy, applied globally. You can't hide from your neighbor.