New Year’s Reflection by TAIRA Masaaki, Minister for Digital Transformation

Happy new year to all of you in the year 2025!

This year, we aim to make your daily life even more convenient by utilizing My Number Card. We have officially started registering the My Number Card as a Health Insurance Certificate.
Although some may be hesitant to adopt this new system, particularly if they are used to traditional paper insurance certificates, it provides numerous benefits for patients and medical facilities. One of the key advantages is the improvement of medical care quality, as it provides access to an individual’s information on past drug prescriptions and treatment history as well as exempting patients from paying over high out-of-pocket expenses without any additional procedures. Moving forward, with the individual’s consent, using the My Number Card as a Health Insurance Certificate will lay the groundwork for medical DX, ensuring the secure sharing of medical information.

We would like to assure you that the paper insurance certificate you currently have will remain valid for up to one year, until its expiration date. If you do not have My Number Card or have not registered it as a Health Insurance Certificate, there's no need to worry — you will automatically receive a Health Insurance Eligibility Certificate without needing to apply. We will continue to communicate the benefits of registering the My Number Card as a Health Insurance Certificate and address any concerns by informing the public about the use of Health Insurance Eligibility Certificate. Our goal is to ensure that all citizens can receive medical treatment with confidence and peace of mind.

Now, over 70% of individual citizens have obtained a My Number Card, which serves as an identity verification tool for the future. To help more individuals appreciate the advantages of having a My Number Card, we will strive to expand the usage scenarios, including those in the private sector, to integrate functions into smartphones and enhance the convenience of Mynaportal, the one-stop portal website.
The Digital Agency will support improving the operations of local governments nationwide. In line with the recently updated “Act on the Advancement of Government Administration Processes That Use Information and Communications Technology”, we will work closely with relevant ministries and agencies to ensure a smooth and secure transition towards standardizing local government systems through the Government Cloud. Moreover, we will carefully evaluate the challenges faced by local governments during this transition and provide the necessary support to resolve those issues.

I believe that this year marks a significant leap forward for both AI and Web3.0. In terms of AI, we will focus on identifying practical use cases and validating their implementation through initiatives like the “AI Idea Hackathon”, which aims to address challenges in collaboration with government officials and promote administrative efficiency. Furthermore, we will enhance our competitiveness and ensure the safety of AI by collaborating with relevant ministers to establish common usage guidelines for the government. Besides, Web3.0 can serve as a means to revitalize regions beyond geographical constraints by connecting people in different locations using its tools like DAOs and NFTs.

In addition to our ongoing initiatives at the Digital Agency, we will continue to promote our "One-stop, no writing service," which simplifies processes by eliminating the need for individuals to repeatedly provide their information at municipal service counters. Besides, we remain dedicated to enhancing disaster prevention efforts through digital transformation, which includes utilizing My Number Card for managing evacuation centers during emergencies and conducting a thorough review of existing analog regulations relevant to local government ordinances.
As an international initiative, we will continue to take on a global leadership in operationalizing the Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT).
Through these initiatives, we will encourage safe, secure, and convenient lifestyles through digital technology.

Concerning digital administrative and fiscal reforms, we will persist in achieving social reforms by enhancing public services and revitalizing local economies through the maximum use of digital technologies with a user-centric focus. Specifically, we will collaborate with the Headquarters for the Creation of a New Regional Economy and Living Environments to advance the Digital Local Revitalization 2.0 initiatives, incorporating emerging technologies such as Web3.0. These endeavors include promoting the digitalization of public services, encompassing education, healthcare, nursing, and transportation, updating regulations to align with AI utilization and innovation advancements, establishing and managing common digital platforms for the national and local governments, and examining systems for data utilization in sectors such as healthcare and finance. We will also pursue these initiatives in close cooperation with relevant ministries and agencies.

I appreciate your understanding and cooperation with our challenges at Digital Agency, and I hope 2025 will be an exceptional year for everyone.

TAIRA Masaaki
Minister for Digital Transformation