Japanese Minister of Digital Affairs Taro Kono has declared “war” on a technology many have not 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, Kono wrote on Twitter yesterday.
He previously vowed to rid Japan’s bureaucracy of outdated tools from the hanko stamp to the fax machine.
Photo: AP
“We will be reviewing these practices swiftly,” Kono told a news conference on Tuesday, adding that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has offered his full support.
“Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?” Kono asked.
Japan is not the only nation that has struggled to phase out the outdated technology — the US Department of Defense only in 2019 announced that it has ended the use of floppy disks, which were first developed in the 1960s, in a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 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 such as cloud storage for wider use within the bureaucracy, according to a presentation by the country’s digital task force dated Tuesday.
The group is to review the provisions and plans to announce ways to improve them by the end of the year.
Kono, one of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s most visible politicians, who is 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 such as a marriage license.
He tried to curb use of both when he was administrative reform minister between 2020 and last year, but the two are still widely used.
“I’m looking to get rid of the fax machine, and I still plan to do that,” Kono said on Tuesday.
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