Identification Card for Social Services	No.640 July 7, 2009
		The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor hurry up procedures to introduce an identification card system for social services. It is an attempt of numbering citizens for an administrative control. The so-called social service card integrates three functions when a person should enjoy public services of pension, health insurance and elderly care. A card contains all the relevant data of each individual. The government is planned to implement the system in 2011. A test will be done in the next month. ANOTHER ATTEMPT OF NUMBERING SYSTEM TO CONTROL PEOPLE Resident Registration Network Gets Useless Attempts have been made to introduce a numbering system to control residents, but the government’s intentions have ended in vain. In August, 2002, the Basic Resident Registration (Jumin-Kihon-Daicho) Network system was made in effect. Thus some information of each individual can be traced through his/her address code, but this system is not shared with by the private sector. The government wants each individual to carry his/her resident registry card with him/her, but the recommended habit has not been welcome. The practice has spread among only 2% or less of citizens. Furthermore, some municipal governments, like Kunitachi City, Tokyo, and Yamatsuri-Machi, Fukushima Prefecture, refuse to join the network. The Jumin-Kihon-Daicho system does not prevail across the country. In spite of several hundreds of billion of Yen spent to involve in the system, it is useless in the cost-efficiency term. The resident registration system has a fundamental defect: it violates basic elements of privacy. For this reason, two of the law suits filed by inhabitants have won. That has triggered citizens’ movements in the country. The government’s intention has been barred. State’s Power Imposed This time the government proposes another numbering system to identify individuals. It focuses on the social services of pension, health and elderly care to incorporate data into a single card. Taking advantage of the recent misconduct at the Social Insurance Agency in which numerous pension data were lost, the government has decided to set up a new identification system, called a social service card. In June, 2007, then-prime minister Abe presented the idea for the first time on the ground that the official pension data might not be omitted, and this year the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) organized a team to study the system. In the United States and Canada an individual’s code number for social services is used as a taxpayer’s code. It is likely that the government of Japan and the LDP envisage bringing the code system into taxation. Along with these developments the Supreme Court turned down in March, 2008, a suit of residents with a decision that the resident registration system was constitutional. In 2009 the highest court rejected all the suits filed by inhabitants of Tokyo and the prefectures of Saitama, Kanagawa and Tochigi. It also dismissed an appeal raised by Saito Takao, a journalist of Tokyo. In response to the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications ordered Kunitachi City and Yamatsumi-Machi, which refuse connection with the controversial network, to accept the administrative decision. Judging from these events, the ruling parties, government and judiciary make the utmost efforts to introduce a general numbering system. Don’t Let Evil System Work! Now, let’s explain about the card. An individual citizen will have a social service identification card of IC system to use at the private hospitals and elderly care centers. In other words, the administrative authority will have a key to trace personal information kept in the government offices and private institutions through a social service card. In the next phase all personal data will be connected on the computer network. We must not allow the state power to intervene in personal information for an evil purpose.