Big Brother fears as Japan ushers in ID era

JAPAN launched a scheme yesterday to cut red tape by giving every citizen an 11-digit ID number as critics protested that the computerised system would open the door to privacy violations and abuse by hackers.

A group of academics and activists presented the home affairs ministry with a petition demanding that the government halt the programme, which links municipal computer systems.

"We don’t want to be under government surveillance, stop the resident registry system," shouted a small band of protesters outside the ministry.

The new nationwide database stores personal information - names, addresses, dates of birth, gender and the new identification numbers - for each of Japan’s 126 million citizens. But at least six municipalities have already announced that they will not take part in the system, while Mayor Hiroshi Nakada of Yokohama, Japan’s second-largest city, said residents would be allowed to choose whether to participate.

Opponents fear that something sinister is at work. "With the resident registry network system, the state will become a stalker with control over personal information," Kyodo news agency quoted Makoto Sataka, a well-known critic of the system, as saying. "With the system, the Japanese people will be put in a prison-state."

Critics also worry that the new system could serve as a stepping stone to a slew of personal data stored at different locations and make it easier for hackers to create mischief.

Mayor Kazuo Yoshimura of Yamagata City in northern Japan made what he called a "humble protest" yesterday morning, delaying the start-up of the computer system in his city by one hour.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s administration failed to enact a promised personal information protection law in a parliament session ended on 31 July after protests from journalists and other critics who said the legislation would do more to muzzle the media than protect personal data.