Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee Working Group (23rd)

Overview

Date and Time: Wednesday, August 23, 2023 (2023) from 15:00 to 17:00
Location: Online
Agenda:
1. Opening
2. Proceedings
  1. Review of digital legislation's Response to the Past and the Bill to be Submitted to the Extraordinary Diet
  2. Status of efforts toward the digital completion of administrative procedures
  3. Economic Effects of the Review of regulations on paper and in-person processes (Interim Report)
  4. About Base Registries and Institutional Issue
  5. Exchange of opinions
3. Adjournment

Materials

Minutes, etc.

Date

Wednesday, August 23, 2023 (2023), from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Location

Held online

Attendees

Chairman

OGUSHI Masaki (Senior Vice Minister of Digital)

Members

Junji Annen (Attorney-at-law, Professor of the Graduate School of Law
Tatsuhiko Inadani (Professor, Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University)
IWAMURA Arihiro (Managing Director, Japan Business Federation)
Takafumi Ochiai (Attorney at law, Atsumi & Sakai, Foreign Law Joint Enterprise)
Akiko Sugawara (Managing Director and Head of Policy Planning, Keizai Doyukai)
Masakazu Masushima (Attorney-at-Law, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto)

Minutes

Secretariat (Harada): Thank you very much for Now that it is time, I would like to begin the twenty third session of the Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee Working Group.

Again, members are invited to participate online.

With regard to the attendance of all the members today, I have heard that Mr. Uenoyama will be absent and Mr. Ochiai will leave during the meeting.

Without further ado, I would like to begin today's proceedings.

We would like to ask Mr. Annen, Vice Chairman, to proceed with the proceedings from now on.

Mr. Annen, Vice-Chairman, please.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister Now, I would like to begin the proceedings.

The agenda of the 23rd Session consists of the following four items: (1) "Response to the Past of review of digital legislation and the Bills Scheduled to Be Submitted to the Extraordinary Diet", (2) "Status of Efforts toward digital completion of Administrative Procedures", (3) "Economic Effects of the Review of regulations on paper and in-person processes (Interim Report)", and (4) "Base Registry and Institutional Issue".

First of all, I would like to ask Mr. Nakano to explain agenda 1, "review of digital legislation's response to the past and the bill scheduled to be submitted to the extraordinary Diet session."

Secretariat (Nakano): Thank you very much Digital Rincho.

I would like to explain review of digital legislation's response to the current situation and the bill to be submitted to the extraordinary Diet session.

On page 1, I would like to explain the background up to now. Regarding review of digital legislation, which is the so-called "Digital Legislation Bureau" process, it is a process to check whether the provisions of the new law, etc. are in compliance with the Digital Principles. We conducted the first trial inspection of the bills scheduled to be submitted to the extraordinary Diet session last year, and we continued to conduct inspections of the bills scheduled to be submitted to the ordinary Diet session this year.

In The Act to Advance Reforms of Digital Regulations, which was established in June this year, the Basic Act on the Formation of digital society was revised, and review of digital legislation was also positioned in Priority plan as a national policy. We made these revisions because we would like to implement initiatives autonomously and continuously, not as a temporary measure.

Next, on page 2, the results of the implementation of the review of digital legislation so far. So far, we have confirmed the compliance of the seven items of regulations on paper and in-person processes, floppy disk, and other provision that may be related to regulation, which specifies media, with the digital principles. At the extraordinary Diet session last fall, there were 23 bills that fall under these categories out of 21 bills, and there were 99 possible provision out of 58 bills scheduled to be submitted to the ordinary Diet session this year, and the breakdown of these is also shown on the right.

Regarding these, for example, there are cases where it is not possible to determine the phase only by reading the text of the law, so we are announcing the results of this inspection along with when we will develop notifications and circulars that clarify that digital technology can be used, and we would like to announce the results of the regular Diet session today.

With regard to review of digital legislation, we would like to deepen it further, and page 3 is the draft response to the bill scheduled to be submitted to the next extraordinary Diet session.

So far, review of digital legislation has been checking and supporting the provisions of the law on whether there is a regulations on paper and in-person processes, as well as the development of notifications and notifications. In the future, we would like to check and support not only the law, but also the business design and system development when the legal system is actually operated, to ensure that they are in compliance with the digital principles.

For this initiative, although the inspection and support has been carried out only by the Digirain Secretariat until now, there are the Government DX Team and the Business Architect (BA) Team in Digital Agency, and the BA Team is a team that also supports whether business design and business review are actually being conducted appropriately, and we would like to cooperate with these teams to inspect and support.

Therefore, as for review of digital legislation's draft guidelines for the bill to be submitted to the Extraordinary Diet, as for the part that was newly expanded this time, which is in red in (2), I would like to newly confirm with regulations on paper and in-person processes on the provisions that provide for administrative procedures for which information systems are expected to be developed. Regarding the provisions mentioned here, there is a so-called project plan. When developing a system through the creation of a project plan, Digital Agency will confirm the content of the plan, properly inspect whether the system is appropriate and whether the business is being reviewed appropriately, and provide support. We would like to newly introduce this initiative because we would like to start with the scene where the law is created.

That's all for my explanation.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister .

Now, if you have any questions or opinions about the current explanation, please let me know. Mr. Iwamura, please.

Member of Iwamura: .

Keidanren has also proposed that it is important to have a mechanism to check whether a legal regulation conforms to the Digital Principles in advance, and we welcome this initiative.

As you explained earlier, it is important to ensure that exceptional regulations on paper and in-person processes does not get into the details of government and ministerial ordinances, notifications, and circulars. I think it will be a rather difficult work to create a support team to check such matters, but I would like to ask you to promote it after firmly building a system and mindset for each ministries and agencies premised on digital.

That's all.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister . Mr. Iwamura pointed out that it will be a difficult task, and I completely agree with that. Deepening review of digital legislation is very desirable, but I am not sure how far it will spread if it spreads.

For example, the current review of digital legislation of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau is up to the Cabinet Order. However, if the review is to be carried out with an eye to the enforcement, it will be difficult to draw a line in the form of a law. It will be necessary to review not only laws and Cabinet Orders, but also government and ministerial ordinances, notifications, and the like. I feel that it will be a difficult work as Mr. Iwamura says. What is your outlook on this point in relation to manpower?

Secretariat (Nakano): Thank you very much .

First of all, thank you for the supporting comments of the Iwamura members. And thank you, Dr. Annen, for your concern.

As you said, regarding the confirmation of the provisions that specify administrative procedures for which information systems are expected to be developed, we would first like to see those triggered by the enactment or amendment of the law in provision. Among them, for example, there are limits to what the BA team can actually support in terms of human resources and resources, so we would like to select them by looking at such factors as, for example, the executives who are making the business properly are committed to the business review. We would like to conduct a trial of what kind of support we will provide this time, and consider how to implement it again from the perspective of manpower as you pointed out, such as deploying good practices to each ministry.

As you said, it is quite difficult to comprehensively check all laws, government ordinances, ministerial ordinances, notifications, etc., and for Digital Agency to actually go into the field and support them, so I will think about an effective way. Thank you very much.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister .

Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Mr. Ochiai, please.

Ochiai Member: Thank you, .

On the whole, it has been deepening, and in that sense, Issue, which you just discussed, has been able to implement it continuously since last year, which I think is a great point.

In addition, as you are still discussing, in looking at regulatory reform, there are places where notifications and notifications actually occupy most of regulation, or most of the content that is recognized as a hurdle, so I think it is quite difficult to expand horizontally. I thought that it was the best thing in the entire agenda set that the Digital Policy Consultation would be conducted not only in regulatory reform but also together with administrative reform, so I would like you to think about how the system itself can be developed in a scalable manner.

If possible, I believe it is important to have the Cabinet Office and each Ministry take action as much as possible, so I would like you to set that as your next goal and implement it.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister . Next, on the second item on the agenda, "Status of Efforts toward digital completion of Administrative Procedures," would you like to hear an explanation from Mr. Kusunome, Director of the Policy Planning Department?

Secretariat (Kusunome): Digital Ad Hoc Liaison Office.

I would like to report on the status of efforts toward the digital completion of administrative procedures.

With regard to the current status of efforts toward the digital completion of administrative procedures on page 1, from March to April this year, we are conducting a cross-sectional survey of more than 10,000 procedures and other matters for digital completion.

The results of this cross-sectional survey were reported at the Working Group meeting in May, and after that, the current status of online implementation of each procedure and future policies will be summarized at the main body meeting of the Digital Rincho in May, and a roadmap for digital completion will be formulated by the end of this year.

In addition, at the time of the summary in May, we organized the procedures that were answered that it was difficult to online by continuing to consider them, and we are currently requesting each ministry to review them.

As for our future response, we will ask each ministry and agency to submit a draft of the process chart for the procedures to be online, and we will proceed with the compilation work toward the end of the year after confirming the specific procedures and digitalization methods.

On the other hand, regarding the procedures that the Cabinet Office and each Ministry have said are difficult to implement online, which are currently being requested for reconsideration, we will examine the responses from the Cabinet Office and each Ministry and consider working toward compiling a process chart by the end of the year.

In particular, as stated in the place marked with an asterisk (*) below, we would like to make a transition to create a process chart for the procedures we are requesting to review, starting with those for which coordination has been completed.

Page 2 shows the procedures that have been requested to be re-examined by the Cabinet Office and each Ministry in relation to the whole. The left side shows the relationship between the application and the notice of disposition in the bar graph. In principle, the application procedure is to be online by the time of twenty twenty-five, but regarding the notice of disposition, the two arrows above the light orange indicate that it is difficult to online, so we are currently requesting a re-examination.

As you can see, there are various reasons why the Cabinet Office and each Ministry are unable to respond, but we will carefully examine the content of each reason.

The right side shows the online policy for notification and acceptance notification. Many procedures are online, but some procedures remain difficult, so we would like to carefully examine them in the future.

Page 3 is for your reference, but it summarizes the overall situation in the form of a table. The parts framed in red are planned to be coordinated with the Cabinet Office and each Ministry toward the end of the year.

In addition, we will continue to report on the status of consideration to the Working Group as appropriate, and we will proceed with our efforts based on discussions, etc. We look forward to your continued support.

That's all for the report. Thank you very much.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister .

If you have any comments or questions, please let us know. Member Masashima, please.

Masujima Member: Thank you, .

The reason why it is difficult to make a digitalization online for the disciplinary action is not because it is difficult to make a digitalization for the notice of the disciplinary action itself, but rather because there are many physical things such as licenses that certify the disciplinary action. The disciplinary action itself is an administrative action, and if you separate the issue from the Issue of certificates that show that the disciplinary action has been taken, I think that the digitalization of the disciplinary action itself may be surprisingly possible.

In addition, the fact that the certificates are sent by mail means that they are sent by mail because they are paper, and it should be an issue of whether the certificates themselves cannot be made a digitalization. If we consider the administrative disposition and the digitalization of the Issue of the certificates separately, I think it is easier to talk about the digitalization.

I believe that the current law is ambiguous about this, and it is like a Issue of certificates when they are disposed of. However, in the digital world, it may be necessary to separate the two and discuss how to handle the granting of qualifications as administrative dispositions and the Issue of certificates of qualifications. We may not be able to talk about the operation of the rules, but if we need to change the rules, I felt that it would be good to receive feedback from the planning of the rules and proceed with the online notification of dispositions by each ministry and agency.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister . You mean you want to segment a series of tasks.

Next, Mr. Iwamura, please.

Member of Iwamura: In response to the answer that it is difficult to go online, it is very important to encourage further scrutiny and reconsideration, and we would like to express our gratitude.

I believe that this is a point that has already been asked of each ministries and agencies, but as long as it is a digital "principle," there will be some accountability if it is an exception, so I would like to ask each ministries and agencies to explain thoroughly and realize online.

From the perspective of ensuring transparency, I believe it is important to show some examples that such procedures cannot be carried out, such as negative listing.

In addition, I would like to reiterate that the review of nearly 10,000 provision is being conducted, and while the understanding that it is a difficult work is deepening in the business community, people who are actually in charge of practical operations are asking when the digitalization as a series of processes will be completed. I would like to emphasize once again that the digitalization of the entire process is important, and I would like to ask for an end-to-end digital completion from the user's point of view.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister . Mr. Ochiai, please.

Ochiai Member: Thank you, .

We are also proceeding with this matter, and I think it is very good, and I think it is about how to destroy the rest.

There seem to be several reasons why it is said that this part cannot be done, but the part of identity verification has become a point of contention not only in the notification of disposition but also in various digitalization. Partly because of this, we discussed the story of the OpenID Foundation, but there are also administrative guidelines for identity verification as the main source of the administrative side. There have already been precedent cases based on the Criminal Proceeds Act and others on the private sector side, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and DADC were involved in the discussions on the OpenID Foundation side, but I think they have organized the discussions to trigger standardization. Regarding identity verification, I believe that such government guidelines will be incorporated into some tools of the Digital Ad Hoc Liaison Office as a method of standardization.

In terms of Issue of goods, among various digitalization, for example, as I participate separately, there are some parts where goods are exchanged even if you want to sell pharmaceutical products or perform procedures digitally, and it is more appropriate to standardize the method of substitution as a means other than identity verification itself, and to spread it horizontally in a certain way rather than sorting it out separately. Therefore, I would like you to sort this out.

Finally, I believe there is talk about whether local government will adopt it. In relation to the review of national and local services, which is on the agenda of the Digital Consultation, I believe there are questions about how much procedures the national government will take, whether it will be cost-effective to include digitalization. If it is reasonable to substitute by creating various mechanisms on the national side to some extent, I believe that the Digital Consultation as a whole will consider such an approach. I think it is quite difficult in the part related to the system, but for the time being, I would like to ask you to promote standardization of identity verification and Issue of goods.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister .

It's true that if you can use what you have for standardization, it's better than that.

Secretariat (Kusunome): Thank you very much. We will consider it based on your comments.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister .

Now, I would like to move on to the third agenda item, "Economic Effects (Interim Report) Resulting from the regulations on paper and in-person processes Review." Mr. Toru Takatani of Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc., who is entrusted with the task of analyzing the economic effects, also attended this agenda item.

Then, Mr. Matsuda and Mr. Takatani will explain.

"Economic Effects of the Review of regulations on paper and in-person processes (Interim Report)" is not disclosed.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister I would now like to turn to agenda item 4, "Base Registry and Institutional Issue." I would like to hear an explanation from Mr. Keibo Ura, Counselor.

"About Base Registry and Institutional Issue" is not available

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister .
I would now like to conclude my remarks on the agenda.
Finally, I would like to ask for a few words of greeting from State Minister Okushi.

Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister for Digital Okushi: Thank you very much to all the members of for your active comments today.

With regard to the response to the bill that review of digital legislation is scheduled to submit to the extraordinary Diet session, we have been conducting inspections and providing support mainly from the perspective of whether or not there is a regulations on paper and in-person processes. As you just introduced, from the next time, we will further deepen law's efforts by conducting inspections and providing support, including in terms of execution and operation, from the planning stage of the design to the development of business processes and information systems. review of digital legislation

With regard to efforts toward the digital completion of administrative procedures, based on today's discussion, we will continue to request each ministries and agencies to take active measures, and we will proceed with the adjustment of the roadmap toward the realization of online administrative procedures up to the level of twenty twenty-five.

Today, we presented an interim report on the economic effects of the regulations on paper and in-person processes review. Going forward, we will continue to scrutinize the figures. In addition, we will continue to support the regulation review efforts in each ministries and agencies so that the cost reduction effects described above can be realized.

Finally, regarding the base registry and the institutional Issue, you discussed the system for the information linkages between public authorities and the number system for addresses and locations (base registry for address). Based on your comments today, we will continue to work closely with related organizations to consider the issue.

Thank you very much for your time today. We look forward to working with you in the future.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister .

Now, the Secretariat will explain about the next Working Group meeting.

Secretariat (Harada): Thank you very much for .

Finally, I would like to explain about the holding of the next Working Group.

The next meeting of the Working Group will be held on Wednesday, September 20, at 1:00 p.m. Thank you very much.

Regarding today's proceedings, if you do not have any objections to Agenda 3 "Economic Effects of the regulations on paper and in-person processes Review (Interim Report)" and Agenda 4 "Base Registry and Institutional Issue," we would like to keep them closed to the public. Regarding the other parts, we would like to prepare minutes later and disclose them after everyone has confirmed them.

In addition, with regard to the treatment of today's materials, we would like to disclose them on the regulations on paper and in-person processes website, except for the materials on Agenda 3 "Economic Effects of the Issue Review (Interim Report)" and Agenda 4 "Base Registry and Institutional Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee."

Thank you very much for joining us today.

Vice-Chairperson Annen: Thank you very much, State Minister .

With that, I would like to conclude the twenty third session of the Working Group. Thank you very much, everyone.