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A6 WORLD NEWS
Wednesday 26 OctOber 2022

Japan steps up push to get public buy-in to digital IDs

By YURI KAGEYAMA mation, given how unpop-
AP Business Writer ular it is.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan has “There is a microchip in
stepped up its push to it, and that means there
catch up on digitization could be fraud,” said Fuji-
by telling a reluctant pub- mori, who has a My Num-
lic they have to sign up ber but doesn’t intend to
for digital IDs or possibly get the new card. “If a
lose access to their public machine is reading all the
health insurance. information, that can lead
As the naming implies, the to mistakes in the medical
initiative is about assigning sector, too.”
numbers to people, similar “If this was coming from a
to Social Security numbers trustworthy leadership and
in the U.S. Many Japanese the economy was thriv-
worry the information might ing, maybe we would think
be misused or that their about it, but not now,” Fuji-
personal information might mori said.
be stolen. Something drastic may
Some view the My Number have to happen for people
effort as a violation of their to accept such changes,
right to privacy. just as it took a devastat-
So the system that kicked ing defeat in World War II
off in 2016 has never fully Japanese actor Masato Sakai shows a sample of My Number card during a promotional event in for Japan to transform itself
caught on. Fax machines Tokyo on March 8, 2021. into an economic power-
are still commonplace, Associated Press house, said Hidenori Wata-
and many Japanese con- to drivers licenses and the Opponents of the change of data. They’re also wary nave, a professor at the
duct much of their business public health insurance say the current system has about government over- University of Tokyo.
in person, with cash. Some plans. been working for decades reach, partly a legacy of “There’s resistance playing
bureaucratic procedures Health insurance cards and going digital would re- authoritarian regimes be- out everywhere,” he said.
can be done online, but now in use, which lack pho- quire extra work at a time fore and during World War Japanese traditionally
many Japanese offices still tos, will be discontinued in when the pandemic is still II. take pride in meticulous,
require “inkan,” or seals for late 2024. People will be straining the medical sys- Saeko Fujimori, who works handcraft-quality work-
stamping, for identification, required to use My Number tem. in the music copyright busi- manship and many also
and insist on people bring- cards instead. But the reluctance to go ness, said she’s supposed devote themselves to care-
ing paper forms to offices. That has drawn a backlash, digital extends beyond the to get My Number informa- fully keeping track of doc-
Now the government is with an online petition de- health care system. After tion from the people she uments and neatly filing
asking people to apply for manding a continuation numerous scandals over deals with, but many balk them away.
plastic My Number cards of the current health cards leaks and other mistakes, at giving it out. And no one “There are too many peo-
equipped with microchips drawing more than 100,000 many Japanese distrust is all that surprised she has ple worried their jobs are
and photos, to be linked signatures in a few days. the government’s handling trouble getting that infor- going to disappear.q

Lebanon: Mediation ongoing for Austin Tice, held in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon is journalist Austin Tice who said Tuesday. General Security Director- slowly but they are going as
still mediating between went missing a decade Washington maintains that ate, has mediated compli- they should,” he said. “The
the United States and Syria ago in the war-torn coun- Tice is held by Syrian au- cated hostage releases in back-and-forth negotia-
over the fate of American try, a Lebanese general thorities. the past and regularly visits tions did not stop.”
Tice went missing shortly af- Syria. Tice, from Houston, is one of
ter his 31st birthday on Aug. In August, President Joe two Americans who went
14, 2012, at a checkpoint Biden accused Syria of de- missing in Syria. The other
in a contested area west taining Tice, the clearest in- is Majd Kamalmaz, a psy-
of the Syrian capital of Da- dication so far that the U.S. chologist from Virginia, who
mascus. A video released is certain that the journalist vanished there in 2017.
a month later showed him is being held by President Tice’s work has been pub-
blindfolded and held by Bashar Assad’s govern- lished by The Washington
armed men. He has not ment. Just few months ear- Post, McClatchy newspa-
been heard from since. lier, in May, Biden met Tice’s pers and other outlets. He
Lebanese Maj. Gen. Abbas parents and reiterated his went to Syria to cover the
Ibrahim, who met with U.S. commitment toward “Aus- conflict that started in 2011,
officials in Washington in tin’s long overdue return to quickly descending into a
May as part of mediation his family.” full-blown civil war. The war
efforts for Tice’s release, Syria promptly denied hold- has killed hundreds of thou-
told reporters in Beirut on ing Tice or other Americans. sands and displaced nearly
Tuesday that his mission is At the Beirut press confer- half of Syria’s pre-conflict
Marc and Debra Tice, the parents of Austin Tice, who is missing ongoing but described it as ence, Ibrahim struck an up- population of 23 million.
in Syria for nearly six years, speak during a press conference, at “long and complicated.” beat tone. More than 5 million of those
the Press Club, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018.
Associated Press Ibrahim, head of Lebanon’s “Matters might be moving are now outside Syria.q