Photo/Illutration A copy machine at a convenience store that issues copies of residency certificates (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

For the second time, the government ordered Fujitsu Japan Ltd. to suspend its problem-plagued service that allows people to obtain their residence certificates using their My Number identification cards at convenience stores.

In at least three municipalities, residents using copy machines for the service at the stores ended up receiving the certificates and private information of other people.

“It is a serious incident that undermines people’s confidence about personal information protection, and I am awfully sorry,” Taro Kono, minister for digital transformation, said at a news conference on May 9.

Kono said the ministry has told Fujitsu Japan to correct the glitches and will inspect the company’s management system.

“I have asked municipal governments to cooperate with the inspection,” he said.

According to the ministry and other sources, multiple problems with the service have occurred in Yokohama, Kawasaki and Tokyo’s Adachi Ward.

In late March, when the cases were reported in Yokohama, the telecommunications ministry told Fujitsu Japan to suspend the service and urged local governments and business operators to inspect the system.

Fujitsu Japan then began thorough checks for 30 organizations, including local governments, that were using the same system.

But on May 2, a wrong family registry certificate was issued in Kawasaki.

The Kawasaki city government uses a different Fujitsu product for the service than the one used in Yokohama.

The digital transformation ministry again ordered Fujitsu Japan to suspend the service on May 9 and extend its inspection range.

In a statement released that day, Fujitsu Japan apologized for all of the problems.

The company “has taken the ministry’s order with the utmost seriousness and will respond sincerely,” it said.

According to the telecommunications ministry, 1,164 municipal governments, or two-third of the total in Japan, have introduced the certificate services at convenience stores.

About 200 municipalities have used a Fujitsu system.

The suspension order on May 9 brought confusion to some municipalities.

Kawasaki Mayor Norihiko Fukuda was negative about the ministry’s latest order to Fujitsu Japan, saying it is important to continue the service.

In Kawasaki, both the family registry system and the system that links such data with convenience stores are operated by Fujitsu Japan.

After the May 2 mix-up, the city suspended the service. But the system was revamped, and the service resumed on the morning of May 9, just before the ministry’s suspension order to Fujitsu Japan.

“The things that occurred in Yokohama would not occur in Kawasaki,” Fukuda said at a news conference on May 9.

In Yokohama, a total of 10 certificate mix-ups were reported, and city officials are discussing what to do.

The city suspended the convenience-store service from the afternoon of March 27. It was restarted two days later after multiple residents asked the city government when the service would resume, officials said.

There have been no problems reported since then, the officials said.

“Many residents use the service, and it is difficult to suspend it abruptly,” a Yokohama city representative said.

In Tokyo’s Adachi Ward, two mix-ups have occurred so far—one in March and one in April.

The ward government held a news conference on May 1 to apologize.

One of the problems in the ward occurred after Fujitsu Japan suspended the system to fix the glitch related to Yokohama’s troubles.

“The ward office feels heavy responsibility, too,” a ward representative said. “If the system will be suspended in the future, we will lose residents’ trust. We will check with Fujitsu if the system is reliable.”

(This article was written by Junki Watanabe, Kenji Izawa and Natsuki Edogawa.)

Related News