Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the first meeting of the Strategic Headquarters for the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society in 2014 (64th in total) at the Prime Minister's Office.
During the meeting, discussion took place on the “the Declaration on the Creation of the World's Most Advanced IT Nation,” the revision of the “roadmap” for that Declaration, “the Strategy for Promoting the Creation and Distribution of Agricultural Information,” “the Public-Private ITS Concept and Roadmap,” “the Declaration of the Strategic Council for Promoting the Use of IT Communications,” and the “state of discussions on the revision of the system related to the use of personal data.”
Based on the discussions at the Headquarters, the Prime Minister said,
“Tomorrow will mark one year since the appointment of Government CIO Endo. He has worked tirelessly for the reform of government information systems. As a result, we have cut the annual cost of the systems related to pensions by approximately 25 billion yen, and realized cost reductions of at least 8 billion annually for the Hello Work system.
These Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare initiatives are leading cases of government information system reform. I would like for other relevant ministers to thoroughly reduce operating costs while cooperating with the government CIO. To that end, I would like the CIO to lead efforts to establish an overall plan for reform.
We must utilize the individual identification number system slated to start in 2016, and give the public a sense of how convenient information technology can be. By 2020, we aim to realize the unification of cards, such as health insurance cards, into an individual identification card; thus enabling a “one card” system that will allow for familiar services to be received using a single card. We also aim for a “one stop” system that will make it possible to complete procedures for public services related to electricity, water, and so forth, in a single place. I would like for you to accelerate work toward fleshing out those systems.
Furthermore, the use of big data is an important element of the Growth Strategy. For this reason, I would like this Headquarters to swiftly compile a direction for reform, including reform related to legislation, that will allow us to establish rules for the handling of personal data in 2015.”