Lies and Secrets, part 2
The days after the official launch of Japan's national ID network
by Gohsuke Takama
Tokyo, Aug 13, 2002
The Day of Official Launch
On Aug 5, Japan's government officially forced to activate the controversial Basic Resident Registers Network, or so called Jukinet among Japanese, without having privacy protection laws enacted, although the network has been up technically since Jul 22.
On the day of launch, 6 municipal governments disconnected. Suginami-ward of Tokyo (510,000 population), city of Kokubunji (110,000), and town of Yamatsuri in Fukushima prefecture (7,300), city of Yokohama (3,450,000) took disobedience. Towns of Futami (5,800) and Obata (18,300) in Mie pref. waited for several days to participate. That day, the computers for the Basic Resident Registers Network at Suginami-ward were kept off. City of Kokubunji had a ceremony of shutting down machines at 9:00 am. Yamatsuri-cho even turned off the system before on the day of testing started Jul 22.
City of Yokohama decided to respect its individual resident decisions to choose opt-out. The city would not participate the network until it would confirm every residents choices, and this process could take a half year or more. The city asked the manager of Prefectural Server to erase the Yokohama's resident data that was previously sent, however, the city did not get its request confirmed.
News reported that citizen's group protested in front of the Ministry of Public Management Home Affairs Postal and Telecoms in the morning, which overlooks the resident network's operation. Even a week later on Aug 12, a group of protesters ripped their number notification letters in front of the Ministry building.
Troubles and Contradicting Explanation
Soon after the network officially launched, nearly 200 municipal governments received an instruction from the Ministry of Public Management Home Affairs Postal and Telecoms. They were instructed to connect their municipal system to the Resident Registers Network only limited time slot, not at all times. Since then, they have been connecting their system within 15 to 30 minutes a day, only when needed.
The Ministry said that the instruction was rather made for those two hundreds of municipal government to enhance computer security and there is nothing to concern about. But that statement made the situation only look like a rhetoric was used by the Ministry for public relations.
On same day, news reported that possible network vulnerability may exist in those municipal government networks, and that resident registers system computers may be connecting to internal Local Area Network that had configuration to the Internet feed. That may open up the system for attacks from outside, including other countries.
This instruction was especially contradicting to the Ministry's explanation previously Aug 5. The Ministry had been saying the Basic Resident Registers Network was built on dedicated leased communication lines and it was separated from the Internet. However, the Ministry's instruction probed that there were points may be connecting to the Internet in municipal government's networks.
Previous week of official launch, the Japan Federation of Bar Association, which is a long time critic of the Basic Resident Registry system, pointed out that the network was built on IP-VPN (Internet Protocol - Virtual Private Networks), which is encrypted IP packet network on shared lines, not on leased lines dedicated to the network. But the Ministry argued to that as IP-VPN is technically equal to leased line.
Information Suppression
But on Aug 6, around the same time the Ministry's instruction was sent out, it also sent another note to every municipal government. The note asked them to consult the Ministry before disclosing any reports of the network's technical troubles to news media.
However, A source said the Ministry's phone lines had been always busy, could not get through. LASDEC, Local Authorities Systems DEvelop Center that is the only tech support for the Resident Registers Network, had same problem or even worse. The source discovered that LASDEC had only ten phone lines for support job. Too little resource for Japan's nearly 3300 municipal governments.
Mis-assignments, Mis-prints, Mis-deliveries of the Numbers
Besides of the network's technical problems, cases of mis-assignments or misprinting of the numbers and mis-deliveries of the letters contain the number have been happening endlessly all over Japan since Aug 5.
Preparation of numbers assignment and delivery method were totally up to municipal government. Most of them tried to reduce the mailing cost by delivering it household basis with folded postcards. It created more chance of trouble.
Twins live in same houses had the numbers assignment mixed up different to the record. Towns sent out notification postcards only 9 digit number printed instead of 11 digit. A city in Osaka Prefecture halted mailing of more than 100,000 notifications when it learned the mayor's approval seal was not printed. Some big cities and wards hired direct mail companies to print and delivery of notification letters. And that increased concerns for more chance of the number leaks into unknown territories.
Criticisms are rising in people too. Many that fear the number information leak complained to municipal government about the notification postcard content could be viewed through paper when it was at bright light source. Non profit organizations against domestic violence, which help runaway wives and children from violent husband, criticized the delivery method would give more chances to stalking husbands to go after and just increase number of victims. But there is very simple fact that many ordinary people felt disgusted when they knew they would be treated as numbers from now on.
Complain Calls
At municipal government offices, they are receiving floods of complain calls everyday since Aug 5. Toru Ebara, an actual staff of Basic Resident Register department at one of Tokyo's ward, talked at a hearing about the situation of his office which is receiving hundreds of calls per day. He mentioned that non of callers supported national ID numbers and the network. Some callers didn't get off the phone nearly one hour complaining.
He also expressed his feeling getting entrenched while taking these calls because Mr. Ebara himself is an opponent to the idea of resident registers network and actively participating protests. However, the mayor of his ward decided to follow the government and Mr. Ebara need to support his family.
Hurrying Technocrats
So why Japan's government so hurried to launch the Network?
Some critics suspect this is a set up for nationals profiling network system upon enlistment. Actually the government proposed 264 administrative jobs to use the Basic Resident Registers Network include very interesting filings, such as registration of explosive specialists, foreign oil traders and deep sea mining specialists. If the system is used to profile those specialist, the government efficiently enlist soldiers with special skills. In April this year, the Prime Minister Koizumi's cabinet proposed a set of bills for emergency mobilization.
Even if the view of enlistment setup was just a flaky suspicion, people would not get benefits of this network quickly as it was said. The government proposed 264 administrative jobs that use the network, including passport issuing, need changes of other laws regarding to the job. Until that changes made, people can not file paperworks online. If you look at the history of Japan, who's gonna expect that change of laws proceed such soon within a few years?
Just Change of Strategy, Not an End
Opposition groups' action would not stop here. New strategies starting. There are chances increasing that municipal government could be persuaded to disconnect as shown examples of Yamatsuri, Suginami, Kokubunji, or to offer people choices as Yokohama. Other ways include that to continue lobbying politicians to propose changes in the Basic Resident Registers Law to repeal the numbering and the network.
Some political parties started aiming to take over majority, assuming that the launch of the network with ignoring public demand would harm popularity of the Prime Minister Koizumi's cabinet. Polls in July shown nearly 80% of Japanese had privacy concern of the network and preferred to postpone the launch.
This is mike from the USA. Hasn't anybody learned any history lessons? I.D.'s are just the first step to controlling the population. Freedom is the price we pay.
Posted by: | January 30, 2003 at 01:06 AM
3/25/2003, 4:25pm (Washington, DC)
I share your concerns about a National ID. My organization, the Association to Stop Unconstitutional Fingerprinting, opposes such plans here in the United States. Our website is at http://www.whyfingerprint.com.
Posted by: Wade Hobbs ("Uedo") | March 26, 2003 at 06:22 AM
Ganbatte yo!!!
Posted by: Wade Hobbs ("Uedo") | March 26, 2003 at 11:06 PM