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Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee Working Group (15th meeting)

Overview

  • Date and Time: Thursday, October 20, 2022 (2022) from 10:30 to 12:00
  • Location: Online
  • Agenda:
    1. Opening
    2. Proceedings
      1. Current status of the law Review of "Resident / Full-time", "In-person Courses", "written notice", and "Visiting Inspection"
      2. Status of consideration of the review of the media to designate the regulation such as FD
      3. Announcement at the 5th Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee
      4. Exchange of opinions
    3. Adjournment

Materials

Minutes, etc.

Date

Wednesday, October 20, 2022 (2022), from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Location

Held online

Attendees

Chairman

  • OGUSHI Masaki, Senior Vice-

Members

  • Junji Annen (Attorney-at-law, Professor of the Graduate School of Law
  • Tatsuhiko Inadani (Professor, Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University)
  • Takafumi Ochiai (Attorney at law, Atsumi & Sakai, Foreign Law Joint Enterprise)
  • Masakazu Masushima (Attorney-at-Law, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto)

Minutes

Secretariat (Kogure): Thank you very much for your visit to It is now time for the 15th Meeting of the Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee Working Group.

Again, members are invited to participate online.

With regard to the attendance status of the members today, Members Iwamura, Uenoyama, and Sugawara are absent due to personal reasons. In addition, I have heard that Member Masushima will leave the meeting.

First of all, I would like to start today's agenda.
I would like to ask Mr. Annen, Vice Chairman, to proceed with the proceedings from now on. Then, Mr. Annen, Vice Chairman, please.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of . Let's get down to business.

There are three items on the agenda this time. First, "Current status of the review of law regarding' Resident / Full-time Staff,'' In-person Courses,'' written notice,' and' Visiting Inspection,'" Second, "Status of consideration of the review of media designating regulation such as FD," and Third, "Matters to be announced at the 5th Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee". In all cases, we will receive an explanation from the Secretariat.

First of all, I would like to ask Mr. Osawa to explain the first item on the agenda, "The current status of the law Review on' Resident and Full-time Employees,'' In-person Courses,'' written notice,' and' Visiting Inspection.'"

The current status of the law Review of "Resident / Full-time", "In-person Courses", "written notice", and "Visiting Inspection" is not disclosed.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of Next, I would like to turn to the second agenda item, "Status of consideration of the review of media Sites that designate regulation Sites such as FDs." Mr. Kusunome will explain this. Thank you.

Secretariat (Kusunome): It will be about 1,600 if all of the Secretariat.
I would like to report on the "status of consideration of the review of media to designate regulation such as FD."

With regard to the current status of the review, regarding the review of the provisions concerning floppy disk and other media, we are currently requesting the Cabinet Office and each Ministry to consider the review ahead of the legal provisions, and as a result of the review, it is expected that all the legal provisions will be dealt with, such as ensuring technological neutrality.

In addition, we plan to request each ministries and agencies to consider checking and reviewing the provisions concerning government ordinances and ministerial ordinances by the end of this month. As stated in parentheses, based on the discussions at the recent Working Group, we are considering requesting consideration after presenting an image of desirable provisions.

In addition, with regard to the provisions of the Cabinet Order and the Ministerial Ordinance, unlike the provisions of laws, there are various provisions such as those on regulation for equipment and devices, and on magnetic disk devices as wastes, etc., and those on DVDs and CDs as media for sound and video recording. Therefore, we would like to closely examine the necessity of reviewing the provisions depending on the nature of each provision.
In addition, with regard to future responses, there are about 1,600 media in total, excluding duplication of provisions related to individual provision, including government ordinances and ministerial ordinances. We plan to compile review policies for each provision by the end of this year for these 1,600 ministries and agencies, and announce them at the Digital Rincho. In addition, based on the review policies, we plan to implement necessary law revisions in each ministries and agencies by the end of 2023. We will also report on them.

On the next page, this is a list of the results of the discussions in each ministries and agencies. As you can see in the box, there are 165 provision of legal provisions concerning magnetic disks, etc., and except for those that have already been addressed, all provisions are clearly indicated to the effect that online procedures and cloud use, etc. are possible. Through such responses, we believe that situations in which legal provisions hinder the use of advanced technologies can be addressed.

As for the table, the number of ministries and agencies that have legal provisions is limited, and there are only about 10 out of 25 ministries and agencies. In addition, the number of laws is 165 provision, which is one tenth of the total of 1,600. Although it is still a long way off, I would like to report this as a milestone.

That's all for the report. Thank you in advance.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of , thank you very much.
If you have any comments or questions about the current explanation, please let us know.
Mr. Masushima, please.

Mr. Masashima: Thank you, Mr. , I would like to ask one question. Is the term "law" used here in the correct sense? Basically, I understand that what is written in this way is not a law but rather a rule of a government ordinance. However, I would like to confirm whether you are referring to the "law" in square brackets.

Secretariat (Kusunome): It will be about 1,600 if all of the laws, government ordinances, and ministerial ordinances are included, but as you said, I explained that it was the result of consideration of the 165 provision of laws in advance.

Mr. Masashima: Thank you, Mr. .

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of Law itself. That was a little surprising. I thought they were down to about ministerial ordinances, but I understood. Thank you very much.
Would you like anything else? Mr. Ochiai, please.

Ochiai Member: Thank you very much. I understand that discussions are underway here, but it may be unavoidable to divide the development into phases at this point in time so that cloud use can be finally made during online procedures, but I would like you to proceed with the goal of cloud use.
That's all.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of . Would you like anything else?
Then, shall we leave the second agenda item aside for now?

I don't mean to ask you to discuss it here, but I would appreciate it very much if you could tell me about it off-site. I heard that the digitalization of documents, etc. will be made due to the revision of the Code of Civil Procedure, and I think the way to send it is to write it as an electromagnetic media or online. Can you say that such a rule is the way of the technology-neutral rule we were discussing here? It will be a long story, so if you have the opportunity to tell me about it off-site, I would like to ask you to tell me about it. I am sorry for the onlooker's interest, but I think that the term technology-neutral here is a very important keyword, so I have expressed my own personal question. I would appreciate it if you could tell me about it later on. Thank you very much.

Now, with regard to the third agenda item, "Matters to be Announced at the 5th Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee Conference," Mr. Osawa will give an explanation. Thank you.

Secretariat (Osawa): I believe that Dr. Annen . I will explain on behalf of Mr. Matsuda in a hurry.
Next week, on the 25th, a parent meeting of the Digital Rincho is scheduled to be held at the Prime Minister's Official Residence. As you can see, the main agenda (3) is the progress of the comprehensive review of regulation in light of the Digital Principles and the acceleration of efforts, as well as the facilitation of the adoption of specialization-based recuruitment, which is a cross-agency Issue.

The content that I will explain is the material that the Minister Kono will present on Agenda 1. It includes the results of the discussions held by the Working Group since June, and it also provides an overview of the efforts toward the end of the year.

On page 1, I would like to introduce that the first is to accelerate efforts for digital consultation, the first is to bring forward the three year intensive reform period to two years, and the second is to discuss how to review regulation at the ministerial level within the "2 + 1" framework. On October 11, I already invited Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare Kato to discuss the online recognition of unemployment at regulation and HelloWork, where work supervisors are stationed. Third, I would like to introduce that regarding the bill to be submitted to the extraordinary Diet, we have conducted a trial confirmation of the compatibility with digital principles, and we have responded to requests for measures in some low-ranking law.

On page 2, with regard to the seven regulations on paper and in-person processes Sites and the media Sites such as floppy disk that I mentioned earlier, as a result of the inspections, policies have been finalized for 9,000 regulation Sites. As shown in the boxes, 99% of the policies have been finalized, and the remaining 1%, which is indicated in small letters at the lower left, is due to the intermittent addition of on-site inspections from each provision Site, the final adjustment of resident and dedicated regulation Sites, and matters related to privacy. Policies are also expected to be finalized by the end of the year, and the remaining approximately 110 provision Sites. ministries and agencies

Moving to the lower right, in addition to law, the Secretariat is also identifying notifications and circulars. We intend to finalize the review policy for those that can be reviewed at an early stage by the end of this year, and for others by next spring.

On page 3, you asked what kind of regulations on paper and in-person processes will be reviewed as a result of the seven regulation inspections and reviews. For example, we aim to improve the efficiency and security of operations by using digital technology for patrolling and inspecting infrastructure such as rivers and dams, and conducting surveys for the Issue of disaster victim certificates. Also, on the right side, we will use digital technology to enable constant remote monitoring of buildings and fire extinguisher equipment without periodic inspection by humans.

On the lower left, we are working to resolve the regulation of private sector companies and the shortage of human resources by making it possible for long-term care service administrators, specialists, and work supervisors to work from a remote improvements in productivity.

As you can see on the right, we will post on the Internet the digital completion of the Safe Driving Manager's Course and the information on the dam discharge that I introduced earlier. We will introduce such cases to improve the convenience of the people.

On page 4, with regard to the development of the Technology Map and Technology Catalog, a new committee has been established under the Working Group you instructed, and discussions have begun from a specialized perspective. In addition, as stated in 2, as the first step in the development of the Technology Catalog, Issue has taken measures against fraudulent examinations, such as the detection of absence from the seat, the detection of spoofs, and the detection of cheating, which are necessary for digitalization for training and examinations. We have actively received technical proposals from companies, and are currently accepting applications, but we will compile the proposals and publish them as a trial version.

Moving on to page 5, so far you have introduced the initiatives related to the review of regulations on paper and in-person processes implemented by the national government, but we would like to support the initiatives of local governments as well. In terms of responses to the three Issue, one of them is that as pointed out by Mr. Takashima, a member of the Parent Society, and the Mayor of Fukuoka, in order to review regulation in local areas, it is necessary to first review regulation in the national government, and we will proceed with consideration on this point in the review of regulations on paper and in-person processes that I introduced earlier. Second, we will prepare and publish a manual that summarizes how the system should be developed in the case of reviewing regulations on paper and in-person processes in local areas such as regulation, as well as procedures and examples of preliminary initiatives. We will prepare and publish the 1.0 version of this manual as early as November. Third, we believe that there are things that the national and local governments must work together to correct toward digitalization, and to give an example, we will review the fact that there is a unique form in which the rules for procedures differ from region to region.

Page 6 is an outline of the 1.0 edition of the Manual for the Review of Local Inspections that I just introduced. As stated in the purport of the manual, we will introduce the national concept of the review of law, etc., and the efforts of the leading organizations. We will also compile a promotion system for local organizations to work on the review of regulation, etc., and a draft procedure for the work. There are steps 1 to 5. After developing the promotion system, we will identify regulation as stated in step 3, and as we have done, we will apply it to the typology phase, which will eventually lead to the review of regulation. I would like to show an image of the flow or draft procedure, and make it useful.

Please turn to the next page. Based on the above, in terms of what the Digital Rincho will focus on toward the end of the year, for 9,000 provision, which I just introduced, we will finalize the schedule over the next two years, and for matters that require legal amendments, we will take concrete steps to amend the law.

The second point is that with regard to the development of the Technology Map and Technology Catalog, although there is a cross-sectional Issue in each ministry, it is not that each ministry will advance technology validation individually, but that necessary support will be provided from the perspective of whether technology validation can be done across ministries.

Third, Dr. review of digital legislation's team will confirm the compliance of the bills that will be submitted to the next ordinary session of the Diet with the Digital Principles.

Fourth, the manual will be released in November to support the efforts.
Lastly, we have received various requests from the business community regarding the digital completion of national and local procedures, and we will accelerate our efforts based on these requests.
I have explained the matters announced by the Minister Kono in the Digital Rincho.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of .
Then, if you have any comments or questions about the explanation just now, please feel free to ask anyone.
Mr. Inadani, please.

Member Inadani: Thank you very much for your explanation. Once again, overall, we are making very good progress. In addition, as the period has been shortened to two years and we are required to make a commitment, I think it will be difficult, but I would like to ask you to continue your efforts. Thank you very much for your explanation. Thank you very much for your explanation. Thank you very much for your explanation. Once again, overall, we are making very good progress. In addition, as the period has been shortened to two years

I have several points that are close to my opinions or comments. For example, the contents of the technology-based Technology Map Promotion Committee's discussion on the development of the regulatory reform and Technology Catalog were very interesting. Mr. Noboru made a very interesting presentation. I think the discussion centered on how many technologies that can be used in the existing digitalization can be found in private sector, and in particular, what kind of form is desirable for engineers to come up with them. I think it was probably a discussion point at that time, but based on various ideas presented by engineers, when we actually change regulation, I think it is essential to look at how much regulation objectives can be achieved with that technology from the legal perspective. I think it was agreed that the Working Group would proceed with cooperation on this matter, and I myself would like to participate in the Promotion Committee as an observer to obtain information. I would like to continue to ask for various assistance from the Secretariat so that the work of the two groups can proceed with collaboration.

In addition, regarding the reform efforts of the local local government, I think that there were many discussions at this working group that this would be the bottleneck in the end. What I think is that, as you have already considered, if you proceed with preparations in accordance with this manual, there is a possibility that there will be common requests for necessary systems from local governments. When such things came up, I remember that there was a principle related to creating a common infrastructure among digital principles, so I thought it would be very good if you could arrange procedures and mechanisms to advance the common infrastructure together with the national government in accordance with that principle.

Lastly, as a legal point of contention, I believe that there were some cautious opinions from a privacy perspective during the regulations on paper and in-person processes regarding access and public inspection. If there are cautious opinions from a legal perspective regarding this initiative, I believe there is a possibility that there will be opinions about advancing the digitalization in relation to the main purpose of local autonomy. However, although there was such a discussion when the personal data Protection Act was unified, there should be no contradiction at all between the idea of advancing it in a basic manner and the idea of protecting the main purpose of local autonomy. If that becomes another point of contention, I would like to have it mentioned here and we would like to proceed with it by persuading everyone to use their wisdom. Please continue to support us.

That's all.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of . Legal aspects will remain, or rather, will come out to some extent.
What do you think, Mr. Ochiai?

Ochiai Member: Thank you very much. In general, progress has been made on this matter, and I would like to express my gratitude. I believe that the Legislative Bureau's project is following up on the bills that have been submitted as much as possible at this stage. First of all, I believe that it will become a full-scale Legislative Bureau if it is brushed up into a process in which many bills can be submitted in the ordinary session of the Diet. I am very much looking forward to it.

What I have noticed is that one is the point of Technology Map. Through the digitalization of training and examinations, it is possible to make it possible to use online at the same time for people who are required to come to the venue face-to-face in various fields. This is the same as the review of the seven items earlier, but by creating technology and a common foundation, it is relatively easy for people to take part in digitalization in the same way by riding on it, and it is economically rational to avoid duplicate investment. When advancing discussions, it is a very useful initiative in the sense that it will be easier to discuss horizontally, and I think that regulatory reform while creating technology is something that only the regulatory reform Promotion Conference can't do, so I think that this is exactly what we can do because we are in Digital Agency. The fact that we can create such a digital regulatory reform has greatly increased the value of Digital Agency itself, and I think that it will play an important part in digital regulatory reform. I have noticed the importance of training and examinations in the Working Group, but I hope that members of the Working Group can earnestly discover that there are other projects that can be reached by such a thing, and if the Committee comes up, the Working Group will exert more power when it comes to the topic of law, so I hope that we can cooperate in this way.

The second part is about local governments's efforts. Regarding the main purpose of local autonomy that Mr. Inadani mentioned earlier, I submitted a written opinion at the regulatory reform Promotion Conference last year. I submitted a written opinion that creating individual forms is not local autonomy. Based on this, I am aware that there is a method that the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is responding to at once by revising the Ministerial Ordinance. However, there are cases where it is possible to write everything in the Ministerial Ordinance and raise all the forms, and there are cases where it is not possible, so I think that we need a little more development of the means of solution. However, it is policies that should be decentralized, not forms or detailed procedures, and I would like to see this become a slogan in the Digital Rincho.

In relation to local governments, as I may have orally introduced it before, we have created a written procedure for the introduction of cashless payment. METI held a regular meeting of Monitor local government, and it was recently updated again to be the third edition, but the purpose was to enable so-called payment at the counter. We wrote about how to review the entire business process, including an image of the introduction of organization and implementation examples, but of course, we also organized the law. I don't know if it was in the third edition, but local government was very concerned about whether it was necessary to issue receipts under the civil law, so I wrote that it was not necessary to issue receipts. In addition, there were several opinions that, for example, as the flow of the business process, even if payment was made through the business flow, if business design was not made at the same time, it would have been more than three times. So, for example, we wrote the procedure with this in mind. In addition, we introduced how to fix the regulation, so I don't know if all of this can be done as it is, but I think we wrote a full set that this is a good method to use technology for local government. I think we had discussions based on the participation of about 20 local government, so I think it might be helpful if you could use it as a reference when creating some kind of guidance document. I very much feel that it is difficult for you to say that digitalization will make it easier for the field in local government, so I would like you to say that it is your job to make it easier and proceed with other work appropriately. If it is just for the users to make it easier, it will be halfway done, so I would like you to make something like that.
That's all.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of . The review manual you introduced is very well written, so I felt that it would be a powerful material to brush up on even more. Thank you very much.

Then, Dr. Masushima, please.

Mr. Masashima: Thank you, Mr. . I feel that things may not progress unless Mr. Digital Agency is able to play a part in the development of local governments in particular. As Mr. Digital Agency said earlier, we have made a manual and changed it like this to some extent, and I think Mr. local government will promote the introduction of it. I feel that there may be some difficulties in properly discussing what kind of analog rules are in the local local government in the first place and moving forward in the appropriate direction.

In the first place, I think there is a part of how much courage Mr. local government can have in the discussion that this is strange, and I feel that it is quite difficult for each Mr. local government to have the function of moving forward by properly examining the quite deep part of the so-called law. I think this is the case with Mr. Digital Agency or a working group like this, and the framework that we can support may be the framework of Digital Legislation Bureau, but I feel that it would be better to have that.

That's all.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of . All three of you have pointed out the significance of efforts in local local government, and this is true. However, as Mr. Ochiai said earlier, even if you say "Go ahead," it is difficult to do it voluntarily. There are fewer and fewer people in local government, and the load per person is increasing, so if you do this, your own work will be easier, and the residents who come to the window will be happy, it will be a win-win situation. Unless we show this by example, simply telling you to do it will only increase your work.

In that sense, as Dr. Masushima just said, it would be ideal if there were some kind of consultation function, so I received a very important point.

Anything else? Will that be all right?

Since I am also a lawyer, I would like to say that the main purpose of local autonomy is, needless to say, the different format is the shogunate system, and it has nothing to do with the main purpose of local autonomy. I think it goes without saying.

One more thing, Mr. Ochiai, I completely agree with your point that the method was good enough to produce such results. I have been engaged in regulatory reform for a long time, but in the end, what I was doing was individual destruction. Individual battles were fought. This time, the Digi-cho's effort was not like that, but to attack in categories. It is difficult to prepare for it, but once you start running, you will achieve such results. I thought it was very important, as Mr. Ochiai said, to verbalize the experience of why such results were achieved. Individual destruction is very good, both for attacking and defending, but frankly, in the end, it ended without significant results. That is why I feel that the attacking method was very good.

Secretariat (Osawa): I believe that Dr. Annen is right. The inspection and review of regulation in the Digital Rincho has been carried out by the method of categorization and then phase. When each provision of the 9000 law is categorized through a horizontal skewer and items in the same category are placed side by side, there were many things that could be understood only by looking at them from the side, and there were also many things that could be developed horizontally from the accumulated prior cases. We showed specific cases and made adjustments with each regulation from the viewpoint of whether or not it could be developed horizontally to another ministries and agencies, and we also studied cases in each ministries and agencies and received active proposals. In that sense, I feel that there was great significance in sticking the skewer this time.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of is right. Everyone says that you should stick a skewer in, but it is very difficult to precook it properly. I firmly believe that the fact that you did that properly led to the results this time.

Thank you very much, everyone. I think it was very good.

In closing, Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister Okushi would like to say a few words.

Chairman Okushi: Thank you very much for your active comments today. At today's Working Group meeting, you discussed three topics. The first is the current status of the review of law with regard to "Resident / Full-time Employee," "In-person Courses," "written notice," and "Visiting Inspection," the second is the status of consideration of the review of regulation, which is designated as a media such as FD, and the third is the fifth announcement of Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee. Regarding the review of law, we expect that the Working Group will hold hearings while scrutinizing the contents of the Process Chart toward the end of the year, so we hope that you will continue to actively discuss it. In addition, with regard to regulation related to floppy disk and others, we will compile review policies for about 1,600 provision by the end of this year. We will proceed with the review of various provisions of government ordinances and ministerial ordinances toward the end of the year. We look forward to your continued guidance.

The fifth Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee is scheduled to be held at the Prime Minister's Official Residence in the near future. Based on the valuable opinions we received today, we will continue to advance the final preparations. Thank you very much for your kind attention today.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of .
Then, I would like to receive an administrative contact from the office.

Secretariat (Kogure): Thank you very much for your visit to . The secretariat will contact you later with the details of the next Working Group meeting. Thank you very much.

With regard to today's proceedings, if you do not have any objections to the first item, "The Current Status of the law Review of' Resident and Full-time Employees,'' In-person Courses,'' written notice,' and' Visiting Inspection,'" we would like to keep it closed to the public. With regard to the other parts, we would like to prepare minutes later and make them public after everyone has checked them.

In addition, with regard to the handling of today's materials, except for the "Current Status of the law Review of' Resident / Full-time Employees,'' In-person Courses,'' written notice,' and' Visiting Inspection,'" and the final "Matters to be Announced at the 5th Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee," we would like to disclose the materials on the Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee website.

That's all. Thank you very much for joining us today.

Mr. Annen (Vice-Chair): I understand that you have no objection to the non-disclosure of the materials on the first item on the agenda of . Is that correct? I acknowledge that you have no objection.

Well, that concludes our 15th meeting. Thank you very much.