Japan Checks 54-M Bank Accounts After Wrong Links Were Found

Japanese Digital Minister Taro Kono has announced that the Digital Agency will check all bank account information that has been linked to the "My Number" national identification system after a number of ID cards were found to have been linked with someone else's information.

Photo Insert: The bank account registration mistakes occurred between July 2022 and May of this year.

The number of accounts to be inspected as of May 21 is about 54.32 million, Tsuyoshi Goto reported for Mainichi Shimbun.

In March 2022, the agency began accepting registrations for My Number card holders' bank accounts through the agency's Mynaportal website and elsewhere. By linking an account to the ID in advance, it will be more convenient for card holders to receive benefits in case of an emergency.

On May 23, the agency said a total of 11 cases in which another person's bank account data had been mistakenly registered were found in six municipalities.

The Iwaki Municipal Government in Fukushima Prefecture said the same day that it had made a similar mistake in one case, increasing the number of incorrect registration cases to 12 in seven municipalities.

There have been a series of problems with the My Number system, including the information of different people being linked to My Number insurance cards.

According to the Digital Agency, the bank account registration mistakes occurred between July 2022 and May of this year. All cases were caused by human error and the incorrectly linked account information has already been corrected. No damage such as erroneous deposits has been found.

In the case of the city of Fukushima, an official who provided assistance on how to use Mynaportal forgot to log out after they registered a resident's bank account to receive government benefits.

As a result, the account data of the next person who used the same device was linked to the My Number card of the person who had completed the previous procedure. Four errors have been confirmed in the city.

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