Japanese government will finally stop using floppy disks

O Japan is recognized for its technological advances, but on the corporate side, especially in government, it is still common to find old Faxes and information to be exchanged stored on floppy disks.

Finally, the Japanese government’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry decided to combat the use of floppy disks, thus abolishing the use of antiquated forms of data storage.

On Monday, the Ministry announced that by the end of calendar year 2023 it had removed 34 ordinances that required floppy disks to be the method used for sending data to the ministry, and an unspecified number of ordinances saying that CDs must be used. ROMs.

The abolished requirements of floppy disks/CD-ROM go back several decades and were also not limited to picturesque and non-sensitive parts of society, as the laws related to areas such as gas, electricity and water supply, mining operations, and aircraft and weapons manufacturing.

Floppy disks are not equipped for many of today’s technological needs, with a maximum storage capacity of 1.44 MB. Still, government bodies in Japan have used them regularly, which sometimes leads to complications. For example, in 2021, it was revealed that Tokyo police lost a pair of floppy disks that contained information about 38 public housing applicants.

The pressure to end the use of floppy disks in government agencies is evidently due to two main problems. The first is that the requirement for physical media reduces the ability to submit and share data online, harming operational efficiency and complicating the process of reviewing or updating information. Secondly, it is extremely difficult to find floppy disks for sale, as they have practically disappeared from the consumer market.

In a statement in 2022, the Minister of Digital Affairs, Taro Kono, head of the Japan Digital Agency Office subdivision, said his team found approximately 1,900 government ordinances, across various ministries, requiring the use of physical media for data storage. So there’s probably still a long way to go, but at least the process has started.