Summary of the Report on the Computer Year 2000 Problem

(Provisional Translation)

（March 30, 2000）

Ⅰ．Results of the Year 2000 Problem Thus Far

(1) The Year 2000 Problem (hereinafter referred to as the “Y2K” Problem) is the first major problem encountered by this computer society that has developed dramatically in the late 20th century. It was believed that, if mishandled, this problem could lead to such a major crisis that the trust in this highly advanced information-telecommunication society would be seriously disrupted.
(2) Up to this point in time, having passed the New Year Period and the leap day that were considered crucial, we have not encountered any major problems, although there have been reports of some minor, short-term inconveniences and incorrect date indications, which only affected some small networks.
(3) However, it is widely believed that, if the extensive systems remediation had not been executed prior to the new year, a large number of major problems affecting other organizations and/or the public would have resulted, including areas of the society infrastructure, leading to serious consequences affecting people’s lives.
(Note) According the "Results Survey", 67% of organizations would have experienced problems affecting others if the system remediation had not executed.
(4) Therefore, we may conclude that we have been able to properly address this problem because of the efforts of both the public and private sectors, as well as the calm and appropriate response of the people.

Ⅱ．Measures Taken in Japan for the Y2K Problem and Their Evaluation

Because of the extent and size of the Y2K problem, it was necessary to have a well-planned, comprehensive strategy to address the problem, with the cooperation and participation of a wide range of people. Measures were taken by both the public and private sectors with the following focal points. During the process, the government accurately considered events which could possibly occur and took actions of appropriate proportions.

１．Systems Inspection for Prevention of Problems
Because this problem involved computers, which are rapidly making their way into every aspect of our society, it was necessary, especially in such an information-dependent nation like Japan, to make thorough efforts to ensure that systems inspection and prevention of problems were carried out with the participation of a wide range of people.

[Actions for the above issue]

① It was essential that systems checking and remediation by a wide range of computer users be strategically promoted in order to prevent society-wide confusion resulting from this problem; therefore, with Prime Minister Obuchi’s initiative, the government established an action plan in September 1998, which was to serve as a basis for measures to be taken.

② Based on this plan, the following points concerning systems inspection were agreed upon:
（a）The Cabinet and the government ministries and agencies shall lead comprehensive and active efforts in the private sector, etc.
（b）Particular emphasis shall be placed on critical private fields such as financial sector, energy sector, etc. having a considerable influence on people’s lives and the economy, central government agencies and ministries, and local public bodies. In these fields, a follow-up shall be conducted every quarter.
（c）Priority rankings shall be assigned to indicate the level of impact in case of a system failure, and the policy of using these rankings for efficient inspection is to be strongly promoted;

③ With the aggressive efforts of both computer users and computer vendors, these measures were taken at an accelerating rate centered on the critical fields. As a result, most potential problems that could have occurred due to the Y2K problem were prevented beforehand, and their impact was limited.

２．Crisis Management
For crisis management, it was necessary to analyze and inspect systems technology, evaluate accurately what could possibly occur, and prepare a flexible strategy for unexpected events such as terrorist activities.

[Actions for the above issue]

① As a means of emergency management by computer users themselves, the government promoted the establishment of contingency plans based on the government’s action plan; most of the involved parties actively responded to this call for such plans.

② As for events that could possibly occur, the government, having studied the progress of systems checking and remediation mainly in the critical private industries and having checked the reliability of various predictions such as the possibility of mass confusion because of “embedded chips,” etc., made a statement at the end of October 1999, saying that “although minor or short-term inconveniences could be possible, no major crisis is expected in the infrastructure of society.”

③ Based on this evaluation, a crisis-management structure, including the maintenance of information networks, was prepared both by the public and private sectors in order to handle potential inconveniences due to an omission in systems correction or the possibility of terrorist activities taking advantage of the opportunity. Furthermore, anticipating people’s interest and anxiety as they prepare for the millennium rollover, the government prepared a specific guidance and actively communicated it to the people.

④ At the beginning of the year 2000, information was collected within an hour and was transmitted, shared, and actively disseminated by the Prime Minister.

⑤ Because of these measures, the people remained calm and collected with respect to the Y2K problem before and after the arrival of the new year.

３．Providing Information
Because the Y2K problem was the first major problem experienced by the information-telecommunication society, it was essential to alleviate people’s anxieties at all levels as much as possible. To this end, a massive amount of information had to be quickly provided to people at all levels concerning the existence and location of the problem, preventive measures, prior evaluation of potential events, crisis management, and things that could happen on certain critical dates.

[Actions for the above issue]

① By the end of 1999, the government had taken the following measures on providing information:
（a）Promoting thorough understanding of the problem by organizations that needed to carry out systems inspection and establish contingency plans;
（b）Providing the people with information regarding the progress made by the public and private sectors;
（c）Providing information to people in comprehensible, easy-to-understand ways such as the “Y2K around Us,” Question-and-Answer collections, and question boxes;
（d）Providing timely information to individual citizens before and after New Year’s Day through such media as government notices like the “People`s Preparation,” official government Web sites, and the cooperation of mass communication organizations.

② In particular, regarding the “People`s Preparation,”
（a）The Prime Minister himself advertised it through newspapers, on TV, by posters, and other means.
（b）Notice was actively provided through new methods such as distribution at schools (winter break’s notice) and convenience stores (door posters).

③ As a result, the people’s understanding level increased, enabling them to handle the issue calmly.

④ In addition to the government’s efforts, related organizations and mass media also provided information from various points of view; this increased the level of the people’s awareness concerning the problem, promoted company leaders to take measures, provided a rich source of decision-making tools, and formed a basis for the people’s calm response.

⑤ However, there were some widespread extremist predictions, such as “Because embedded chips are used everywhere, we will have mass confusion”. These unsubstantiated predictions created a certain level of fear among the people.

４．International Measures
Y2K was a worldwide challenge and the type of problem that would have inter-related influence in the networked society. Hence, it was efficient to decide which measures should be taken by individual nations while also participating in some international cooperative efforts. In addition, among industrialized nations, Japan reached the year 2000 ahead of most countries for geographical reasons; therefore, there was international interest in what Japan was doing to prevent problems and what information would come out of Japan immediately after the coming of the new year. These facts required that the nation handle this problem properly.

[Actions for the above issue]

① The government took measures to promote international response by providing information on how the country is responding to the Y2K problem and hosting the APEC Y2K Week. Further, based on the APEC Y2K 100 Days Cooperation Initiatives, etc., the government provided information concerning crisis-management measures to the developing countries.

② Preparations were made to utilize the United Nations structure in order to respond quickly to possible unexpected events in countries in the Asia-Pacific region so that technical situations could be quickly grasped and technicians could be sent promptly.

③ With regard to the measures taken in Japan, due to the lack of sufficient information available overseas, it was reported earlier in some countries (such as the United States) that the problem was not promptly addressed in Japan, raising the anxiety level of the people. However, as the public and private sectors began to actively and intensely work on the preparation in the country and as these efforts became more apparent within and without, these fears vanished.

④ In actual crisis management, the country transmitted information accurately and promptly through such organizations as the U.N. International Y2K Cooperation Center.

⑤ The country’s measures taken before and after the new year, as described above, were internationally praised.

Ⅲ．Lessons from the Y2K Problem

The two main lessons to be learned from the Y2K Problem are: (1) “Items for future reference based on this experience” and (2) “Remaining challenges from this experience to be further addressed in the future.”

【Issues to be Considered for Future Reference】

１．Importance of Participation by All Levels of the People
① Because Y2K was a problem related to the wide range of computer usage, everything from services of the society’s infrastructure to personal computers-directly impacting the people’s lives, they could not help getting interested in the problem while it was a technical problem difficult to comprehend accurately.
②Therefore, not only the government, local public bodies, and corporations, but also a variety of organizations and groups such as citizens’ organizations and the media actively participated in the provision and exchange of information in addition to checking their systems and establishing crisis-management strategies.
③ As a result, systems inspection, for which a wide coverage of measures was required, was conducted at an accelerating rate; while some worrying elements existed, various forms of information exchange helped establish a certain level of knowledge regarding related information, laying a foundation for the people’s to respond in a calm, collective manner.
④ While the society gets even more information-oriented, it is essential to create ways in which the effectiveness of measures to combat a problem is improved by participation of many levels of the people, not just of a select few, should another problem arise involving the entire country in a similar way.

２．Information Availability: Essential for Public Participation
① In this problem, the government actively provided information concerning warnings of the problem, its impact extent, systems checking, contingency planning, using a wide variety of media such as government bulletins, the World Wide Web, and cooperation of the mass media. Furthermore, private critical industries and related organizations provided a large amount of information to the public.
② Such information was spread in large quantities, not only through local public bodies, private corporations, and the mass media, but also through citizens’ groups, etc.,providing a rich source of decision-making tools to the people and making it easy for the people to participate in the problem.
③ In order that the people participate in future problems as in this one, active provision of information is a necessary condition, and the use of many means, such as the Internet, to provide information should be considered.

３．Necessity of Strong Leadership
①When looking back at the structure of the Y2K Problem measures, one realizes that, in addition to the people’s participation, there was strong leadership in each organization and among the involved organizations.
② As for the government, since the fall of 1998, based on the initiatives by Prime Minister Obuchi, an action plan was laid, various preventive measures were promoted based on it, information was actively provided to the public, a strategy for crisis management for the New Year Period was established, and other measures were taken; the leadership of the ministers in their respective branches of the government played an important role throughout.
③ As for private organizations such as corporations, based on the admission that a single department cannot possibly handle the problem, the top management people took leadership in overseeing organization-wide systems inspection and crisis management. At the local level, leaders and officials of various local public organizations and municipalities took the leading role in preventive measures and crisis management.
④ In critical private sectors such as medical services and SMEs, which involve a huge number of parties concerned, the related organizations took initiatives actively.
⑤ With such leadership as described above, measures for the Y2K Problem were taken at an accelerating rate; the handling of this problem can be used for future reference in order to face this type of socioeconomic problems requiring a significant amount of capital and manpower.

４．Necessity of Accurate and Abundant Information Provision in Emergency Management
① Since the Y2K Problem was the first major problem of this kind and the uncertainty could not have been eliminated completely, it was necessary in this crisis management to provide accurate information, particularly on what could happen. In other words, while making the statement such as “preventive measures are being carried out to the extent that no major confusion would occur”, denying extremely pessimistic predictions so as to raise the people’s sense of security, it was also necessary to form a certain level of awareness for what might happen.
② To achieve such a balanced attitude, it was essential to provide abundant, multi-faceted information such as details concerning some basic questions that the people may have and mass distribution of “The People’s Preparation.” Further, around the change of the year, the communications network prepared beforehand by the public and the private sectors was fully utilized to keep the people’s anxiety minimum and to provide collected information quickly and accurately to the public.
③ As verified by the handling of this problem, the following points are fundamental to crisis management, although the situation may not be exactly identical:
（a）To encourage involved parties to always keep crisis-management consciousness in mind and to promote the establishment of preventive strategies such as preparing a contingency plan in advance for crisis management;
（b）To provide the people with information on potential events, etc., including warnings against inaccurate information; accurate, abundant, and prompt information is to be provided and spread widely.
（c）For emergencies, it is important once again to provide timely and accurate information by using systematic communications networks and information structure prepared beforehand.

５．Effective International Cooperation
① As the information society gets more advanced globally, more worldwide problems can be expected in the future; the experience with Y2K has proved that such problems can be extremely effectively handled in the framework of international cooperation.
② For instance, in order to address future challenges in the construction of a highly advanced, information- and telecommunication society such as cyber terrorism, computer viruses, and electronic commerce issues, it is hoped that not only governments but experts in information communication, finance, transportation, and other areas work together in an international framework to work on such issues as information exchange and cooperation for developing countries.
③ In such cases, one must keep in mind that information will be shared primarily in English. Not only in this problem but in other information fields as well, English is used as the standard language for information telecommunication; therefore, both in the private and public sectors, measures should be taken to be able to transmit a large volume of information on Web pages and in presentations in English.

【Issues for which Further Actions should be Taken】

６．Necessity of Prompt Measures for the Internet Society
① With the Y2K Problem, preventive measures taken by involved parties of this and other countries, the overseas comments and news coverage on what was being done in this country, the up-to-date situations around the world during the rollover period, and the other types of information were provided and shared by various levels of groups, including governments and experts, almost simultaneously throughout the world, via the Internet mailing systems, etc. This has led to extremely effective results.
② On the other hand, the Internet also spread rumors and viruses that may have increased the global level of anxiety about the Y2K Problem. Since the beginning of the new year, some Web pages of government-related organizations, etc. were invaded and attacked by hackers, confirming the fact that the Internet generation is not without its “dark side.”
③ As seen here, future execution of policies will require measures for the Internet era; however, in the process of addressing to the Y2K Problem the government's use of the Internet was somewhat limited although its Web pages, mailing lists, and the Internet to collect related information were to some extent used .
④Hence, in order to better respond to new needs such as crisis management and public announcements in the future, it is necessary to attempt to establish a system that takes advantage of more usage of computer networks such as the Internet (e.g., establishing an information-telecommunication network for the new residence of the Prime Minister), to reinforce computer security strategies, and to organize personnel, physical, and legal structures.

７．Measures for the “Black-Box” Effect of Technical Problems with Large Social Impact
① In handling the Y2K Problem, the government and others asked for accurate information regarding embedded computer chips; however, up until the end of 1999, some mass media and people’s groups were spreading information with little or no evidence, leaving an element that increased fear among the people.
② The main reason for this is that the role of computer chips embedded on microcomputer-equipped devices and machines was not sufficiently studied in technical detail. An entire system was thus considered as a sort of “black box," and consequently the tendency was to make predictions and err on the more serious side.
③ On this issue, manufacturers provided much information on individual devices and machines, but computer experts and technicians did not provide accurate knowledge or much information regarding the general effects of embedded computer chips. Further, the little information made available did not always reach the people accurately. Hence, unnecessarily serious comments (such as those mentioned above) by people who are not experts in the field became rather influential.
④ One can only predict that science and technology such as information, biotechnology, and atomic power will have a considerable impact on our economic society, and it is necessary to prevent this technological “black-box” effect from unnecessarily amplifying fear among the people. To this end, the government needs to work even harder than ever to actively provide technical information and to set up an environment in which technically oriented people can, with good understanding of the society, explain the technology in easy-to-understand terms, and where non-technically oriented people can gain basic knowledge on the foundation of science and technology, such as computers.
⑤ In addition, the importance of multi-layered contingency plans was confirmed by the omission of corrections and subsequent errors that occurred for the New Year Period and on the leap day.