TOKYO: 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.

Japan’s Digital Minister KONO Taro said on X that the “My Number” card function will be installed on all iPhones in the future. He said the function was already available on Androids.

He said it was possible to display qualification certificates on the smartphones. 

今後iPhoneに搭載されるマイナンバーカード機能は、すでにアンドロイドで実現済みの電子証明書の搭載のほか、券面記載事項も搭載できるので、年齢や住所の確認も可能となるほか、資格証明書をスマホに表示できるようにもなります。アンドロイドでの券面記載事項の搭載時期は現時点で未定です。

— 河野太郎 (@konotarogomame) May 30, 2024

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’ names, addresses, dates 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 Inc.’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.

JIJI Press