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The story
It has come to light that the launch of the “next-generation My Number Card,” which the Digital Agency has been pursuing, will be delayed again — from the originally planned rollout within this fiscal year to fiscal year 2029. Digital Minister Toshiharu Furukawa, who took office in September, told reporters on October 2 that the agency would “strengthen security and make the card more user-friendly.” Behind the delay is also the fact that “RSA2048,” the encryption scheme used in the current card’s digital certificate, will no longer meet security standards after January 2031 due to advances in technology. On 5ch, the discussion split between gripes about the hassle of renewal procedures and technical explanations of how the encryption algorithm works.
The Digital Agency is aiming to roll out the “next-generation My Number Card,” with improved security and convenience, sometime during fiscal year 2029. It was originally scheduled for rollout within this fiscal year, but the launch has been repeatedly delayed due to system-related issues. Digital Minister Toshiharu Furukawa, who took office in September, told reporters on the 2nd that the agency would “strengthen security and make it more user-friendly.”
◆ The next-gen card plans to migrate to a more robust encryption scheme
The purpose of the next-generation card is to ensure the card’s security keeps pace with technological progress while also improving convenience. In addition, according to the final report issued in March 2024 by the expert panel “Next-Generation Individual Number Card Task Force,” there is an issue with the algorithm (computational procedure) used to encrypt the data in the current card’s digital certificate, meaning it will become unusable after January 2031. The report states that once the next-generation card is introduced, the agency “will consider ways to promote a swift transition to the new card.”
Source: tokyo-np.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
But if you were told "you'll get points for it!" you'd go running over there in a heartbeat, wouldn't you?
I hate that kind of cheap mentality, so I only made mine after the points campaign ended.
This is the government's responsibility, so instead of making citizens show up in person, they should figure out a proper method — mail it, whatever — and have the national government handle it directly.
Just have civil servants do it.
Build it themselves from scratch.
They're supposedly gathering top talent, so you'd think they'd develop and code it in-house instead of outsourcing it.
The counter was empty so it wasn't too bad,
but I wish they'd improve it so you don't have to go to city hall at all to renew.
The digital certificate thing? That doesn't even make sense to me.
Turns out you can actually renew it at larger post offices too.
I went all the way to city hall only to find out I could've done it near my house. Was stunned.
OpenAI touted "iris scanning to prove you're not a machine" and ended up collecting biometric data that way. It's the same trick as candy sellers also selling diet food.
So they'll be taking fingerprints to roll out biometric authentication, huh.
A country of hollow industries that lowballs technical workers is finished.
The engineers who got stuck handling the Y2K bug back then are probably not even alive anymore, huh.
They've already hit retirement age and left the workforce.
Re: #156
How many years do you think have passed since 2000?
It's not like every single employee who worked on that was some guy in his 40s or 50s.
But I guess I'll have to get one eventually, right?
At this point, I honestly have no idea when the right time to make one even is.
They're basically threatening us that starting next year you'll need the My Number Card for health insurance too.
It's supposedly optional, yet they say a card without a chip won't cut it.
Any decent country already has chips in health insurance cards and driver's licenses.
I guess the government lost its motivation, since harassing citizens over this doesn't actually make them any money.
If you're not having any problems, I don't think you need to make one.
I made mine thinking I could use it for furusato nozei (hometown tax donations), but this year the My Number app kept throwing errors and it was completely useless for digital applications.
Feels like the My Number Card itself might just die out at some point.
What does that even mean? Does it mean the current My Number system is full of holes and your info can easily be stolen?
Even the Digital Agency, which calls itself the leader of the digital society, keeps getting its data ripped out left and right.
Isn't everything probably already leaked by now?
"Possible leak of personal information of staff and others due to unauthorized access to the Government Solution Service"
https://www.digital.go.jp/news/2026-0911-01
The current My Number card uses RSA 2048-bit, but given how fast computing power keeps advancing, that's apparently already the bare minimum key length.
And with a quantum computer, the time needed to crack it gets even shorter.
I just fed that exact post to Google and had it answer.
What exactly is the "problem"?
The My Number Card's digital certificate (the feature used for online identity verification)
uses an encryption algorithm (computational procedure) called "RSA2048," which is widely used around the world.
This encryption is sufficiently secure for now,
but according to standards that evaluate the nation's cryptographic security (CRYPTREC) and others,
it's predicted that "given the pace of technological progress, its security will hit its limit by around 2030 (the risk of it being broken will rise)."
For that reason, a policy has been set to discontinue its use from 2031 onward.
This absolutely does not mean "the current system is riddled with bugs or flaws."
Seriously, this project just burns money —
are they gonna spend migration costs all over again?
This basically means a full overhaul of the My Number portal too, doesn't it.
The My Number Card itself is basically a test run.
It'd be more dangerous to just keep using it as-is.
Time to buy all new card readers.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
This delay isn’t the result of any flaw being found in the current My Number Card. Rather, it follows a regulatory timeline that was already known in advance: the “RSA2048” encryption scheme used in the digital certificate will no longer be recommended after 2031 under the national security standard (CRYPTREC), which accounts for improving computing power and the eventual practical use of quantum computers. In the thread, several posts mistakenly assumed there was “a security flaw,” but later replies corrected this, pointing out that “the current system doesn’t actually have bugs or defects.” The discussion also surfaced a practical point that isn’t widely known — that renewal can sometimes be done at post offices, not just municipal counters. The specific specifications and issuance system for the next-generation card are not addressed in the source article.
※This article is composed of excerpts and summaries from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “Digital Minister Furukawa Toshiharu: Reason for “Next-Gen My Number Card” rollout delay is “there were no vendors”.”
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