The government will hold workshops on the use of smartphones and tablets for administrative procedures next fiscal year, in an effort to promote the digitization of administrative services, a signature policy of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's Cabinet.
The workshops, to be held nationwide, are aimed at elderly people who have little experience with such devices.
The government plans to create a system in which users can go through administrative procedures online. Among such procedures are the e-Tax electronic filing and payment system and Mynaportal, a special website that can be used with a My Number identification card.
In the future, the government hopes to expand the system to include procedures that are frequently used in daily life, such as applying for the collection of oversize garbage and making hospital or taxi reservations.
The workshops are planned to start from May next year at about 1,000 locations across the country. The venues are likely to be mainly at mobile phone shops, where salespeople who are well-versed in smartphone operations will take a role as digitization promotion supporters and teach participants how to use the devices.
Currently, there are about 8,300 such phone shops in Japan, with an estimated 75,000 employees working in them. In addition to the phone shops, the government also plans to hold workshops at local entities such as IT-related companies and social welfare councils.
The government will fully subsidize the project, so the participants can attend for free.
According to an estimate by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, the number of elderly people in need of assistance when digitization reform takes place adds up to about 10 million. Takuya Hirai, minister for digital transformation, has said that the government will make sure that everyone benefits from digitization. The government aims to mitigate the digital divide by fiscal 2025.
In preparation for the workshops, the ministry has conducted a trial to foster digitization promotion supporters and fill in the details for the full-scale project, as well as helping to develop educational materials for the supporters.
In addition to the ministry, other related organizations, such as the Cabinet Secretariat and the National Tax Agency, will join discussions with the mobile phone companies' side. The ministry is also considering establishing a qualification system for the supporters.
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