Japan’s parliament on Friday enacted a law that enables personal information on My Number social security and taxation identification cards to be stored in smartphones.
The revised My Number law, which will take effect within a year after promulgation, enables information such as cardholders’ names, addresses and face photographs to be saved in their smartphones.
The move is expected to boost cardholders’ convenience, as procedures such as opening online brokerage accounts and age verification when shopping can be completed using their smartphones.
My Number cards serve as certificates of cardholders’ name, address, date of birth and gender, among other information, and as electronic certificates for identity verification, which has been available on Android smartphone devices since last May. Both features will be available on Apple’s iPhone smartphones from next spring.
The legislation also includes a provision to remove gender as part of information displayed on My Number cards, after calls for eliminating it in consideration of sexual minorities. Gender information will not be printed on the surface on new cards to be introduced as early as 2026, but will be stored in the cards’ IC chips.