{"id":2485,"date":"2009-02-25T00:10:47","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T15:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=2485"},"modified":"2009-02-26T09:46:17","modified_gmt":"2009-02-26T00:46:17","slug":"all-new-japanese-driver-licenses-now-have-ic-chips-no-honseki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=2485","title":{"rendered":"New Japanese driver licenses now have IC Chips, no honseki"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Handbook<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"Foreign<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"JAPANESE<\/a>
\nHi Blog. \u00a0Related to yesterday’s posting: \u00a0While looking up other things for my thesis, I noticed that a significant new change has happened from 2007 with Japanese driver licenses. \u00a0They’ve been getting IC Chips as well.<\/p>\n

Here’s a screen capture excerpt from the NPA website:<\/p>\n

\"npaicchipdriverlicense\"<\/p>\n

(there’s a lot more text below on the site as explanation, see it at\u00a0<\/em>http:\/\/www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp\/menkyo\/menkyo\/ic\/ic.htm)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The reasons I find this perturbing (as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry comments discussing this<\/a>) are:<\/p>\n

1) There is no standardized form of ID that Japanese MUST carry 24\/7 or face criminal punishment, unlike the Gaijin Cards discussed yesterday<\/a>. \u00a0The Driver License is the most typical, followed by the Health Insurance Card (which is not even a photo ID), the controversial Juuki-Net card<\/a>, koseki touhon<\/em> and juuminhyou<\/em> (also both not photo IDs) and passport. \u00a0Which means this most-used form of ID (many people spend thousands of dollars for drivers’ ed classes just to become “Paper Drivers”) is now getting Gaijin Cardized. \u00a0People are going to be trackable in future the same as the NJ.<\/p>\n

2) For “privacy’s sake” (gee whiz, suddenly we’re concerned?), the honseki<\/em> family registry domicile is being removed from IC Chipped Driver Licenses. \u00a0That was ill-thought-through, because once I get my license renewed, short of carrying my Japanese passport with me 24\/7 I will have no other way of demonstrating that I am a Japanese citizen. \u00a0After all, I have no Gaijin Card (of course), so if some cop decides to racially profile me on the street<\/a>, what am I to do but say hey, look, um, I’m a citizen, trust me. \u00a0And since criminal law is on the Fuzz’s side, I will definitely be put under arrest (‘cos no way of my own free will am I going to the local Police Box for “voluntary questioning”, thank you very much) as the law demands in these cases<\/a>. \u00a0I see lotsa false positives and harassment in future Gaijin Card Dragnets.<\/p>\n

And this after all the pains I took to make sure my Driver License had my honseki<\/em> on it in the first place eight plus years ago when I naturalized. \u00a0See one of my favorite funny stories about that here<\/a>. \u00a0(You just gotta love the vigilance of the cops that day, tracking me down for congratulations and offers of protecting my rights.)<\/p>\n

One bit of good news, if you can call it that. \u00a0The NPA site shows exactly where the IC Chip is on your license. \u00a0Ready your hammers… \u00a0Arudou Debito in Sapporo<\/p>\n

PS: \u00a0I just checked my Driver License. \u00a0As it says above, this IC program was inaugurated from January 2007, but I renewed my license back in January 2008. \u00a0Wonder why I didn’t get chipped. \u00a0The IC Chip machines hadn’t made it up this far north yet?<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While looking up other things for my thesis, I noticed that a significant new change has happened from 2007 with Japanese driver licenses. They’ve been getting IC Chips as well.<\/p>\n

One reason I find this development perturbing: For “privacy’s sake” (gee whiz, suddenly we’re concerned?), the honseki family registry domicile is being removed from IC Licenses. That was ill-thought-through, because once I get my license renewed, short of carrying my Japanese passport with me 24\/7 will have no other way of demonstrating that I am a Japanese citizen. After all, I have no Gaijin Card (of course), so if some cop decides to racially profile me on the street, what am I to do but say hey, look, um, I’m a citizen, trust me. And since criminal law is on their side, I will definitely be put under arrest (‘cos no way of my own free will am I going to the local Police Box for “voluntary questioning”, thank you very much) as the law demands in these cases. I see lotsa false positives and harassment in future Gaijin Card Checkpoints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,26,10,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration-assimilation","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-policeforeign-crime","category-shoe-on-the-other-foot-dept"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}