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Politics : RAMTRONIAN's Cache Inn

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To: pat mudge who wrote (7533)	8/7/2000 11:59:42 AM
From: b_spiral	Read Replies (1) of 14464

Thought this might be of interest... nni.nikkei.co.jp Saturday, August 5, 2000 MITI Aims To Issue All-Purpose Smart Cards TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Ministry of International Trade and Industry has come up with an ambitious plan to distribute multipurpose smart cards that could function as national health insurance, ID and bank cards to all Japanese residents in fiscal 2001, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Saturday. MITI plans to ask for the 120 billion yen needed to fund the project in the fiscal 2001 budget. Smart cards have two main advantages. They can carry far more data than a magnetic card because they come embedded with IC chips and they are more difficult to forge. Their use is spreading fast in Japan. Smart cards are already used for expressway tolls and pay phones, and banks and post offices are also set to introduce them. Local governments are working on plans to distribute them as residents cards. The Ministry of Health and Welfare is also considering using them as health insurance cards. MITI believes a single all-encompassing card would eradicate the need for bulging wallets full of plastic and save central and local governments from spending billions of yen on equipment to write and read information for their own separate cards. The plan calls for the cards to be issued to everyone in fiscal 2001, with the inputting of information to start from fiscal 2002. MITI believes the cards could serve as commuter passes and credit cards as well as health insurance and bank cards. The cards would function as ID cards from 2003. Further technical improvements are being planned so the cards can be used to lock homes and cars and double up as driver licenses and passports. (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Sunday edition)

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