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The 7th Study Meeting on the Operation of Character Requirements in local governments Information Systems

Overview

  • Date and Time: Tuesday, January 30, 2024 (2024), from 15:00 to 17:00
  • Location: National Town and Village Hall Online
  • Order of business
    1. Review of the 6th Review Meeting
    2. Demonstration projects Interim Report
    3. Revision of Character Requirements
    4. Other

Materials

Summary of proceedings

Date

  • Tuesday, January 30, 2024 (2024), from 15:00 to 17:00

Location

  • Zenkoku Choson Kaikan / Online

Attendees

*Honorific titles omitted

Chairman

  • Masahiko Shoji (Professor, Faculty of Sociology, Musashi University)

Members

  • Atsushi Ogino (Expert, local governments Information Systems Organization)
  • Tatsuo Kobayashi (Chairman of the Character Information Technology Promotion Council)
  • Shuji Goto (President and Representative Director, area Information Technology Laboratory Co., Ltd.
  • Hiroyuki Sasahara, Professor, Waseda Daigaku. Shakai Kagakubu
  • Nobuaki Hayashi (Senior Manager, Usuki City Health Health Division)
  • Satoshi Harada (Kyoto Sangyo 21 Promotion of DX Supervisor and CISO)

Associate member

  • Masahiro Kamanaka (INES Corporation)
  • Masanori FUJINO (NEC Corporation)
  • Hiroaki Aoki (Hitachi Systems, Ltd.)
  • Shukyu Omura (Fujitsu Japan Limited)
  • Ryota Takaiwa (FUJIFILM System Service Co., Ltd. (attendance by proxy))
  • Yuki Hayase (Ryobi Systems Co., Ltd.)
  • Masakazu Yoshida (RYOMO SYSTEMS CO.,LTD.)

Observer

  • Hiroshi Aono (Section Head of the Digitization Promotion Office, Planning Division, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Autonomous Tax Bureau)
  • Shohei Hasegawa (Administrative Officer of the Digitization Promotion Office, Planning Division, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Autonomous Tax Bureau)
  • Takuya Hazama (Section Chief of the First Civil Affairs Division, Civil Affairs Bureau, Ministry of
  • Mizuki Natori (Assistant Director of the Enrollment Support Section, Educational Support and Teaching Materials Division, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Elementary and Secondary education Bureau)

Agenda

  1. Review of the 6th Review Meeting and Burden Reduction Measures
  2. Demonstration projects Interim Report
  3. Revision of Character Requirements
  4. Other

Handout

Materials: Study Meeting Materials on the Operation of Character Requirements in local governments Information Systems

Proceedings

  • At the 7th meeting, looking back on the 6th Review Meeting as a matter to be reported, it was mentioned that basic font files prepared in Digital Agency would be provided in the first half of fiscal 2024, and the secretariat reported that measures would be advanced for IVS in cooperation with the Character Information Technology Promotion Council.

  • The Secretariat provided an explanation on "demonstration projects Interim Report" and "Revision of Character Requirements" based on Material 1.

Question and

Member: When I proposed the term " Materials, there is a statement "on the premise that data using the PUP area will not be circulated outside the system," but this point is equivalent to the fact that the administrative operation Standard Characters are being established, and I cannot connect this point. Please explain this idea once again.

Secretariat: The international standard for this measure is to use UCS and VS. However, if you use them to represent characters by setting code points in pairs with glyphs, many vendors cannot cope with it. The basic font file will use IVS, but on the other hand, in the sense that we will create a font file that uses code points assigned to PUP, we will create a font file that can handle both.

Member: When I proposed the term " It says, "Data using the PUP area cannot be circulated outside the system," but this probably means that it can be circulated only among communities and organizations that have agreed to work with files and documents using the PUP area. In fact, when using PUP, it is stipulated in the Universal Coded Character Set (UCS) that "nothing is specified." However, when using it, it says, "The sender and the receiver must agree on the code point separately from the standard." I think that agreement is equivalent to "Data using the PUP area cannot be circulated outside the system." To put it the other way around, this data is meaningless even if it is put outside, and it simply does not have any characters.

Member: When I proposed the term " My awareness of the problem is the same as yours, but regarding administrative operation standard characters, I have an image of the world in which data is exchanged, including exchange with local government and public authorities. I understand that one of the questions is whether the way of expressing the characters that I am trying to organize this time is allowed, and the explanation from the Secretariat has the nuance of "tentative." I personally have a bad feeling about this. I think that it is an ideal image to use data using a standard that can be exchanged continuously or permanently in the future, so I am worried about whether it is really good to be in a state where there are fluctuations in the future. In particular, I think many people related to local government wonder.

Member: When I proposed the term " Regarding the first question, from my point of view, I can only give a technical answer, but regarding the use of PUP, it is said that it can be used only between two parties who have agreed. The same is true for one stop service on the web. For example, when outsourcing a large amount of address printing from local government to a printing company, it is technically and UCS regulation that it is no problem to pass the data together with the font file after saying, "Please do not use it for any other than this business."

Regarding the second question, I think it should be provisional. I would like you to stop using the name "Basic Font File" because it causes misunderstanding and misleading. For example, I would like you to use a name that clearly shows that this is a temporary file, such as "Temporary Reduced Font File." If this is going to proceed under the name of Basic Font File, I don't think I can grant permission for that. One more thing I would like to ask Digital Agency is, regarding the roadmap mentioned by the members at the last review meeting, I think it would be good if we could know how long this provisional font file can be used and how to convert it into a font that conforms to the international standard at the stage when the international standard is established. I think the time period in the roadmap may be due to the convenience of local government and others, but I think it would be good if we could show that, for example, "Within a period of six months to one year after the international standard is established, PUP will not be used for data exchange between each local government. In addition, regarding the internal system, let's wait a little longer." I am not an expert, but as far as I hear from vendors, database conversion is very difficult. However, whether this conversion is also done manually or by creating a system such as a mapping table, or whether it is done in a lump sum or in part, I think it will change greatly depending on future problems and methods. I would like Digital Agency to make efforts to reduce various concerns about preparing provisional files by talking with document management experts and preparing guidelines.

Member: When I proposed the term " Although it is a temporary font file, it can be a general one, so I think it is good to show the period of use together. In the world of administration, there are many words such as "temporary period" and "for the time being," and there are cases where they continue for a very long time without knowing the end. I would like to see the period of use shown in the sense that we would like to minimize the number of words and things newly created.

Member: When I proposed the term " identification support tool has been development and is in the operation stage, and I felt that it was a wonderful development that when a character shape is input, candidates for the administrative operation standard character shape with high similarity are shown. Therefore, I would like to ask you a question. Is the mechanism of the identification support tool mechanically performing pattern recognition, etc., like artificial intelligence and AI? Please tell me to the extent that you can explain.

Secretariat: Ministry of Justice, we reduced the number of characters from 1.63 million characters, which are characters managed by family registry vendors, to 700,000 characters by removing duplicates, and mapped the 700,000 characters to 70000 characters. We learned the data as teacher data. This is the starting line. If it is a character of family registry, it can be identified only with this, but unfortunately, this time, not only characters used in family registry but also characters used in other business systems subject to standardization are targeted, so further learning was required. The characters used in other systems should be the same as those in family registry, but there are subtle differences in the characters due to the difference in the era when they were created and the person who made them, and there are design differences due to the performance of the machine. In demonstration projects, which is currently being implemented, with the cooperation of 113 local government, we are performing machine learning to absorb this design difference by using about 300,000 characters from local government.

Member: When I proposed the term " identification work has been shown and that there is a good prospect. However, as a specialist involved in characters, it is easier to correct the situation at a certain stage than to show only what has been decided at the end as a result of the identification work. Therefore, I would like to cooperate as necessary.

Secretariat: We would appreciate your continued cooperation in the future.

Member: When I proposed the term " identification support tool to find characters that are not in MJ or MJ +, or characters that cannot be identified but should be in MJ +?

Secretariat: At present, the first task is to identify various characters in local government, including those other than family registry, and a separate working team is considering how to respond to the characters that could not be identified.

Member: When I proposed the term " As soon as possible, I would like to have the MJ + shape data and the attribute data, as long as they are known. This is because without them, the process of internationalization will not proceed. I believe that the business itself will be meaningless unless the process of internationalization proceeds, so I would like to ask for it.

Secretariat: Study Group.

Member: When I proposed the term " Materials, the secretariat listed the trade name as an example. I think this has been raised in relation to corporation inhabitants tax and fixed asset tax, but what kind of image is it to consider this individually?

Secretariat: In proceeding with the main work, we started from the fact that we must attach importance to personal identity. We started by applying the characters and names of family registry accurately to the identification map created by the Ministry of Justice. Therefore, we basically think that the characters used in names, etc. must be identified. On top of that, as I mentioned in the example of Yago, I think that so-called registered characters are also within the scope of our work. Therefore, I would like the Working Team to hear the opinions of the people in charge in local government about how to respond specifically and how to do so, and to consider them individually. However, I would like you to understand that the standardization this time is focused on names.

Member: When I proposed the term " Corporate Register nor in the prefectural corporate tax system, which covers a wide range of corporations. Even if local government responded to the strong refusal from the said corporation to replace the characters with other characters if they were currently used by local government or the strong request to use them in the future, I don't think it is possible to add new characters to MJ + for that purpose because it will be divergent where we should be converging.

Member: When I proposed the term " Secretariat, it is being worked on as a matter related to personal identity, but it seems that the story of the trade name is within the scope of this work, but it is difficult to decide how to respond. In addition, it is understood that it has been arranged that it is not assumed at present that a new character is added to MJ +. What do you think?

Secretariat: I would like to share the current status of Issue. Since the discussion of MJ + has been discussed in the standardization of 20 services and in the securement of individual identity, it was not assumed that the characters of MJ + would be added for trade names, etc. in the standardization of 20 services. On the other hand, when considering services other than 20 services and services of other ministries and agencies, it is considered that it is necessary to add registered characters, etc. to MJ +, and there was an opinion that it is OK to forcibly identify trade names, etc. that may be added in the future to MJ +.

However, after listening to the opinions of the members, we considered that at least what should be emphasized in the text of the 20 operations is individual identity, and that it should be limited to additions by securing individual identity.

Member: When I proposed the term " . In the roadmap of this city, identification work has already been advanced using MJ instead of MJ +, and A is 1 and B is 2, but C could not be identified. Therefore, this city also provided external characters in cooperation with demonstration projects in Digital Agency, and some characters have been identified and returned. How should characters that have already been distinguished and characters that have been distinguished by the tool be treated?

Secretariat: At present, when it comes to the identification of characters, each local government uses its own software, etc., and the staff members make decisions before proceeding with the identification. This naturally takes time and money, but above all, we believe that there is a high risk of being identified as a different character by each local government. If you use this tool for all local government, basically you can be identified as almost the same character, so there is no risk, and it does not take time or money. We would like you to use the tool for technical advice. However, there are some local government that have already been identified in MJ, and there is no duty to use the tool provided by Digital Agency to identify them again. Therefore, if you have already proceeded with the identification work, there is no problem in selecting the character, and we believe that it is okay to use the identification tool again and compare the two before making a decision.

Member: When I proposed the term " So, on page 13 of the material, I think it is a major premise to make sure that there are no differences in quality. Some organizations are moving toward standardization ahead of others, but I felt that it would be good to review it again using the tool provided by Digital Agency in order to eliminate differences by local government. I would like to ask you again on page 13, but are you sure that vendor-specific characters are external characters?

Secretariat: vendor I think there are various names such as Gaiji, but you can think of them as Gaiji.

Member: When I proposed the term " In actual operation, it is true that the unique characters created by vendors are much cleaner than those created by employees, but they are something that requires an additional fee when deployed in tack seal, etc., so I think that not only local government, the user, but also vendors will say that the story will be different. I would like you to confirm the explanation and view here again in Digital Agency. Also, regarding No. 2 on page 13, is the element of whether or not the character is in the database important?

Secretariat: Is it the intention of the question, "What makes a sharp distinction between the characters used in standard compliance system and the characters used in names, etc.?"?

Member: When I proposed the term " The intention is that we are not so particular about that, and we think that the standard of simply registering it as a character code in the database as Japanese is sufficient.

Secretariat: demonstration projects, there is a check to see if it is registered as a database first, and if it is registered as a database, I think it is necessary to divide the pattern into whether it is registered as a name or not. The three local government that are cooperating with the working team are the three local government that were raised when we recruited companies that can identify them in this short period of time together with vendors.

Member: When I proposed the term " , there is a description of vendor-specific characters, but I think it will be easier to understand the difference if I clearly show what the characters are unique to. I understand that the characters indicate the characters provided by the vendor because the characters are used relatively often for characters other than the JIS standard of a specific local government, but it is difficult to understand, so I think it would be good if you could clarify it. In addition, I feel that it would be better to consider how to handle these vendor-specific characters in the future. In particular, as I mentioned earlier, I think that there may be characters created in the past at the strong request of the corporation that "This is the character of our shop name" to the municipality, but I hope that it should not be recognized that these characters should be newly added to MJ + as characters under special treatment.

Member: When I proposed the term " I feel uncomfortable that vendor-specific characters are not open in the contract. I think that characters are codes to make society recognize me as myself and are public goods, and I wonder whether it is appropriate to limit the use of characters to some people in the contract. I think it would be good to promote them more openly, including character shapes.

In addition, I think that forcing the characters of the non-conforming family registry into MJ and MJ + is not controversial because it is thought that many people will use family registry only a few times in their lives. On the other hand, in the future, the characters identified in MJ + will be used many times in the administrative work of local government, including elections, and identity confirmation will be substantially obtained. While checking the characters of the non-conforming family registry, isn't it one way to treat the characters identified in MJ + as the original copy, and for the time being, recognize the characters containing the non-conforming characters as the original copy, and proceed with them simultaneously?

I think that the fact that characters are public goods and the social cost of characters should be further discussed.

Member: When I proposed the term " fonts are individual contracts.

Secretariat: vendor-specific characters, it is also the Issue that appeared in demonstration projects, but since there is a contract between them that says, "Do not take them outside," we would like to make them known and draw attention to them by publishing them in the materials. We would like to encourage vendors to understand that it is part of a public effort to eliminate external characters from Digital Agency.

Member: When I proposed the term " Although we do not deny the cooperation during the interim measure, as a practical matter, the damage from cooperation errors is large, so we do not directly link the data only by the Chinese characters of the name, and we think that we link the data by the integrated address number or My Number so that there are no errors, or we link the data after checking the relevant information. Although it does not affect the standardization transition, should we recognize that such specifications have been prepared?

Secretariat: local government and vendors, it is a part that allows cooperation as a standard option function, so I hope you will accept it as such.

Member: When I proposed the term " Am I correct in understanding that "standard option functions" on page 15 and "cooperation during the transitional measure period" on page 17 are equal?

Secretariat: Page 15 is just a function, so it is described as such because it depends on functional requirements. Page 17 is just a cooperation requirement, so it has the nuance that cooperation is also possible.

Member: When I proposed the term " I wonder if page 17 is what the vendor really wanted, but is it correct to understand that there were many voices?

Secretariat: PMO tool, questions and requests were raised from a considerable number of vendors.

Member: When I proposed the term " In addition, from the perspective of vendors, it seems that not all vendors will wish or be able to realize this response. Therefore, I would like you to cooperate with us while setting up a transitional measure period. In relation to this, on page 16, is this, for example, a story in standard compliance system? I think that the way to take is different depending on whether it is made by the same vendor or by a different vendor.

Secretariat: I believe that the impact of this measure is significant, and I think that your opinion is that "it would be difficult if we could not respond to this." As shown in the document, it is essential to be able to convert it into MJ + and send it, but I hope that you will be able to work with the conventional character code.

Member: When I proposed the term " materials, but I think whether or not I use the so-called 16 private areas here will come to me. To put it in an extreme case, I would like you to explain it thoroughly so that the moment you launch the optional feature, you don't think, "You don't have to change anything from before."

Secretariat: I am concerned about the point you pointed out, and it is stated that this is an optional function. I would like to show it clearly.

Associate Member: In the case where the transitional measure is applied to the On page 17, it is said that the character codes of the resident record system will be sent as they are, but what I am worried about is that the resident record system used the provisional character codes as they are, and there are many current situations in which the character codes are also used in the systems of other companies. This time, the character codes linked to MJ + will be unified, and since it is impossible to express characters if they are exactly the same, I have the recognition that the use of MJ + character fonts or the like will be approved in local government for the systems of other companies. However, as a result of the approval of the provisional measures this time, I am very worried that there will be pressure to say, "If this is OK, I would like other systems to use the same characters as the resident record system." Therefore, I would like to ask you to make arrangements so that this does not happen.

Secretariat: Before saying that it is possible, I thought again that it would be better to proceed after adding a sentence such as when agreement between vendors is obtained in advance. Once again, I would like to write that what is not good in the proviso and FAQ is not good.

Associate Member: In the case where the transitional measure is applied to the Resident Record System for each local government, so if such pressure is applied, I think the situation in which all local government cannot switch the system during the twenty twenty-five will become worse. I would like to ask for thorough dissemination.

Associate Member: In the case where the transitional measure is applied to the Resident Record System and the business system of the nursing care system is handled by MJ +, the form output from the resident record system is output in the conventional character font, and the form output from the business system of the nursing care system is output in the character font of MJ +. Therefore, I think that the character font may be slightly different from the viewpoint of the residents. Is it acceptable or would it be acceptable?

Secretariat: There are such cases in the current situation, and the font is competitive areas even after standardization.

Member: When I proposed the term " UCS or JIS, the font is an abstract concept, and it is assumed that there are various expressions in a single character. In the course of advancing this project, as I showed at the previous review meeting, there is a document published by the Culture Council of the Agency for Cultural Affairs on the concept of the font of Joyo Kanji, which is very helpful. The specific granularity of Unicode is slightly different, but what is signed is the concept of the abstract font. I would like you to explain that in the course of advancing this project.

Secretariat: One more thing I think is that it is important for us to understand it, but I think it is necessary for residents and employees to understand it. Due to the huge amount of materials, I cannot give it to you as it is, but I think that if we do not try to advance this understanding, it will end up being "Letters are difficult." So, I would like to advance it after receiving advice on how to convey it in an easy-to-understand manner.

Member: When I proposed the term " For one thing, I think it's a good idea to eliminate the option of not being in one of the limited character sets, and then choose "What is the character of your name?"

Member: When I proposed the term " The example you gave me earlier seems to be the "Guidelines on the Font and Shape of list of Kanji for common use (Report)," but it can be said that this is a concrete indication of the standards that were originally consistent for the Agency for Cultural Affairs. I think it is very ideal to use this material for the operation of national Chinese characters. However, in the guidelines, it is also described that proper nouns have peculiarities. For example, it is a topic of conversation that there is a distinction between Tsuchiyoshi and Samuraiyoshi in terms of family names, but the guidelines that regard them as design differences clearly state that they have been operated for many years by the family registry administration according to the Chinese-Japanese Dictionary. I think it would be good if there were something visible so that the operation would not be fragmented for each local government. The guidelines are more than 200 pages, so I think that the interpretation will be divided depending on how it is provided.

Member: When I proposed the term " Regarding page 17, until when is the transitional measure period?

Secretariat: , we have stipulated that transitional measures other than family registry will be "decided at the end of March." We have a plan on when to set the deadline for transitional measures, but there are advantages and disadvantages, so we are at the stage of sorting it out right now. In addition, we are planning to ask for opinions on the character requirement, and we would like to implement it at the end of February. We would like to hear the opinions of the committee members on how much transitional measures should be taken in the future, so we would like to proceed quickly.

Member: When I proposed the term " Today, when I saw this material in advance, especially when I saw pages 16 and 17, I had a dark feeling, saying, "What was this review meeting for?" In other words, when I saw page 17, there was no difference from the current situation. As the Secretariat explained earlier, if you have such an intention, I would like you to present the content after incorporating it into characters. This review meeting is not a review meeting on characters in the family registry system, so it is regrettable that I did not have an opportunity to talk about it. In any case, I feel great expectations, including from local government officials, about keeping the characters within a certain range, so I would like you to organize it so that you can make the most of it.

Secretariat: In order to avoid misunderstanding, I would like to organize it in characters.

Member: When I proposed the term " standard characters," I intended to emphasize that they are used in administrative operation, so I would like that to be conveyed. If there are no other opinions, I would like to end the proceedings here. administrative operation standard characters

End