In June, Taro Kono, Japan's minister in charge of administrative reform, issued a directive asking all ministries and commissions of the Japanese central government to abolish the use of fax machines.
However, according to Japan's Hokkaido Shimbun reported on July 7, Minister Kono's directive to seek reform was not well received, and opposition poured in, forcing him to give up.
It is reported that the reasons of the opponents are "worried about information security", "poor communication environment", "reluctance to use e-mail" and so on.
Reported by the Hokkaido Shimbun
The report quoted a Japanese government official as saying that Minister Kono believes that fax is one of the factors hindering remote work, so he has asked Japanese government ministries to stop using faxes by the end of June and use e-mail to communicate.
However, according to the Office of the Ministry of Management (hereinafter referred to as the "Bureau"), kono has received about 400 objections since Kono 's order'. Because the communication between the ministries involved "highly confidential information such as civil trial procedures and the police," they expressed concern that switching to e-mail would "require a new system to ensure information security."
There were also objections to "reluctance to switch to e-mail", while reasons such as "the communication environment was not good enough" and "the need to ensure multiple communication channels for emergency use" were also raised.
The Japanese government had originally agreed to use fax machines only for some of its disaster prevention operations, even if there were concerns that that might lead to information leakage. "Many ministries and agencies should have stopped using faxes, but we can't 'stand up' and say we don't use them anymore," said an official at the Bureau.
When the COVID-19 epidemic in Japan was very serious last year, the unique situation of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government still using fax machines to count new cases every day was surprising, and there was even a "trouble" that forgot to press the fax confirmation button, resulting in more than 800 cases being underreported.
Mr. Taro Kono, Minister in Charge of Administrative Reform of Japan
In addition, in September last year, Kono Taro also asked all central government ministries and commissions not to use seals as much as possible, and said that he would promote the "de-stamping" of offices throughout Japan.
Although the initiative has been supported by various ministries and commissions, some Japanese netizens have expressed their opposition, saying that "seal culture is also Japanese culture, and it is not appropriate to abolish seals on such a large scale."