Governmental ID System in Japan

Kaan writes: "Japan just launched a mandatory, nationwide ID system whereby every citizen is assigned an 11-digit identification number. The database stores personal data (name, address, date of birth, gender, possibly more data) for each person. At least five municipalities are refusing to join the system, which accounts for ~4 million of the 127 million total. While some Japanese folks are refusing to cooperate, most are going along with it. Is this the beginning of the end of privacy in Japan? How much longer until we see something like that in the U.S.?"

Comments

Sounds like the danish system.

[Hektor_Troy]

Our CPR (Central Person Registry) stores your CPR-number. Mine looks like this:

130477-1235 (no, this is not my real CPR-number)

This indicates that my birthdate is the 13th day of the 04th month of the 77th year.

1235 is the "checksum" and gender-marker; even numbers for women, uneven for men. I think they use X for women and Y for men without a permanet citizen ship (refugees and the like).

Also, the entire number has to pass some kind of test, but I can't remember how it's used.

The CPR also has the current address of each person along with an opt out feature for commercial mail targeted at you, which is nice, because all companies in Denmark have to comply by that setting, but they only have access to the address through CPR.

You can read a lot more about the system here.

I am a proponent of personal privacy, and I don't have a problem with this system - probably because I can't think of a single intrusion into my privacy caused by it.

I think it comes down to "trust", and so far I haven't had a reason not to trust the CPR.