My Number Card: Inconsistent policy

A series of policies have been introduced that will have a major impact on people’s lives, such as equipping My Number cards with the functions of health insurance cards and driver’s licenses, ceasing the issuance of health insurance cards, and prohibiting the use of driver’s licenses as identification. These policies are forcing people into a situation where they cannot live without their My Number cards, whether they like it or not.

In introducing these policies, the government cites that one of the benefits is that citizens will no longer have to carry multiple cards, but is that really true?

For example, long-term care insurance cards are still sent in paper form.

Health insurance cards have been replaced by My Number cards, while long-term care insurance certificates remain the paper cards they were in before the shift to plastic cards (about three times the size of the card-type).

Since health insurance cards are used by all citizens, consolidating them into My Number cards would require people to apply for a My Number card. However, since long-term care insurance users are also health insurance users, there is no need to consolidating long-term care insurance certificates into My Number cards for forcing applications for My Number cards, so it appears that the issue has been neglected.

If long-term care insurance certificates were printed on My Number cards, people would no longer need to carry their insurance cards, but the fact that they cannot be used with My Number cards makes it easy to imagine that the government’s true aim is not to make things convenient for the public.

We will need to keep a close eye on what will come next in the wake of such a heavy-handed policy.