Security News > 2023 > August > Japan's digital minister surrenders salary to say sorry for data leaks

Japan's digital minister has doubled down on a June promise to penalize himself for the poor rollout of the country's digital ID, My Number Card, by offering up three months salary on Tuesday.

The interim report reportedly revealed a lack of knowledge among the public on how to link their My Number Card to disability records, cases of health insurance being connected to the wrong card, and errors in pension records of public servants.

"As the Digital Minister, I recognize that I should draw a line," said the minister.

Admittedly, the minister has been tasked with a hard job: turning around a populace that is is not enamored of government digital services and had not enthusiastically adopted digital ID. Symptomatic of that mindset is the fact that Japan only stopped requiring floppy disk and CD-ROMs be used when sending data to the government in August 2022.

Japan could have made it easier on itself as the process of obtaining a My Number card in the first place was cumbersome.

To readers outside Japan, it may seem odd that a politician has sacrificed a quarter of their annual salary for failures related to digital transformation challenges.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/08/17/japanese_minister_offers_up_salary/