Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 59known as ‘Juki Net’. In essence, Juki Net is a network of registries, each run by localgovernments.Since the launch of Juki Net in 2002, it has been plagued with troubles. In the first yearonly 250,000 citizens signed up for the Juki Card, 118 while a number of localgovernments refused to connect to the system because of fears for personal informationsecurity. The government of the city of Yokohama, for example, at first refused toregister its 3 million residents. When it finally decided to join the system, it allowed forcitizens to ‘opt out’.In order to address security concerns, the Nagano Prefecture carried out a studyemploying a team of computer security experts and tested the system’s security over theinternet and local governments’ internal LAN. 119 The study found that residents’information could be accessed and data could even be falsified, but the Governmentrefused to agree that the system needed improvement. 120 One of the researchersinvolved in the study contends that the Government went so far as to censor apresentation he was supposed to give to a security conference in Japan on the significantfailures in security that he had identified. 121A number of protests also erupted around the country upon the launch of Juki Net, aswell as numerous court cases questioning the constitutionality of the system. In the firstcase to be decided on May 30th 2005, the court in Ishikawa prefecture ruled thatindividuals may not be required to agree to obligatory transaction of registeredinformation through Juki Net because of the provisions of Article 13 of the constitution,that protect privacy. The court further ordered that the information of the 28complainants be removed from the system: this decision prevents the Government ofIshikawa from sharing their information with the central Government. The Court alsorecognized that giving residents a numeric ‘Juki Code’ gives the central Government theability to search and gather further personal information within their databases. It wasfelt that such powers could create a chilling effect among Japan's residents. Thefollowing day, however, another court in Aichi Prefecture ruled in favour of the system.Similar lawsuits have been filed in 13 different courts across Japan, challenging thecollection of data for Juki Net. The confusion will not subside in the near future.Hong KongSince 1949 Hong Kong residents have carried ID cards. In 2002, the Governmentintroduced a new card that would include a smartcard. These are being deployed as partof a seven-year plan costing $400 million. 122The new card contains basic information on the individual, a fingerprint image and anID number. The data is stored only on the card, not in a government database, but thelegal regime behind the card allows the unrestricted use of ID numbers, thus stillpermitting the almost unrestricted use for the profiling of activities of individuals across118 ‘Japan’s National ID Card Falls Flat’, CardTechnology.com, October 8, 2004.119 ‘Japanese government, US security expert meet in court’, Paul Kallender, IDG News Service, January 25, 2005.120 ‘Free-speech suit filed against Japan’, The Sydney Morning Herald, January 27, 2005.121 ‘US security expert sues Japanese government’, InfoWorld, January 25, 2005.122 ‘Hong Kongers to get ‘smart’ ID cards’, AP on CNN.com, March 11, 2002.