Japan’s newly appointed Minister of Digital Affairs, Taro Kono, has done just that war declared on floppy disk and other forms of obsolete media, which the government still requires as a medium of presentation for about 1,900 types of business applications and other forms. The aim is to modernize procedures by moving the process of sending information online.
Kono announced the initiative during a press conference in Japan on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. Legal issues have prevented the modernization of cloud data storage in the past, and Japanese government offices often use CDs, minidiscs or floppy disks to accept submissions from the public and businesses. For example, Japan’s Mainichi newspaper reported in December 2021 that Tokyo police lost two floppy disks containing information on 38 public housing applicants. A digital task force led by Kono will announce how to fix these issues later this year.
The digital minister declares war on floppy disks.
There are about 1900 government procedures that require the business community to use disks, i.e. floppy disk, CD, MD, etc. to submit applications and other forms. The Digital Agency will change these regulations so that you can use them online.— KONO Taro (@konotaromp) August 31, 2022
Shortly after taking office earlier this month, Kono announced his desire to modernize technology in the Japanese government, talking about Japan’s reliance on hanko hand stamps during the COVID19 pandemic and fax machines instead of email. He has also been open about the issue on Twitter.
As a storage medium, floppy disk technology dates back more than 50 years. Sony introduced 3.5inch floppy disks in 1983, and they typically store just 1.44 megabytes of data in their most popular variation. Sony stopped making them in 2011, and Taro joked during his press conference, “Where do you buy a floppy disk these days?”