The Yomiuri ShimbunA system to manage public documents efficiently and properly must be prepared in accordance with the progress of digitalization.

Under a basic policy plan compiled by the government’s Public Records and Archives Management Commission, documents will be managed electronically throughout, from their compilation and storage to their transfer to public archives. The plan will be officially approved this month.

Under the new system, official documents will already be in digital form when they are compiled and will be stored digitally as well, in contrast to the current system, in which public documents are stored, in principle, on paper.

It will be easier to search and share data among relevant departments and sections, as such documents will be managed in an integrated manner on servers and other devices. A distributed storage system will also prevent data from being lost in times of disaster.

More than 90 percent of documents produced by government ministries and agencies are stored on paper, imposing a strain on them to store, transport and dispose of documents.

The National Archives of Japan cannot afford to provide sufficient storage space, so the government will open a new archive facility in fiscal 2026. In accordance with this, an electronic management system will be introduced on a full scale.

To ensure a smooth introduction, it is necessary to build a system and hammer out procedural details. Digital storage and organization of data should also be tackled step-by-step.

When the new system is introduced, it will be essential to use equipment that is suitable for the long-term storage of documents. Countermeasures to prevent information leaks through cyber-attacks must also be studied.

Prevent misconduct

It is also essential to work out measures to prevent misconduct by officials.

According to the government’s basic policy plan, a system will be introduced in which a limited number of officials will be allowed to correct and delete saved documents and a system will be introduced to prevent corrections from being made by a single person. Browsing histories and records of corrections will also be kept. It can be said that these are reasonable steps.

The handling of official emails is also a matter to be studied, as emails are essential for the verification of policy-decision processes. The government is expected to ban for the time being the use of a system in which stored data is deleted after a certain period. It is imperative to study the criteria for data storage of the vast number of emails.

In recent years, there has been a series of scandals involving the handling of public documents. The Finance Ministry altered documents approving transactions involving private school operator Moritomo Gakuen. Daily logs on Ground Self-Defense Force peacekeeping activities in Iraq were discovered after their existence was denied.

Such sloppy handling of public documents, if repeated, may undermine public confidence in national administrative offices, thus posing an obstacle to policy implementation.

As part of measures to bolster data-handling arrangements, each government office will assign a public document supervisor from April. It is imperative to apply the planned system properly based on rules, without being preoccupied with customary practices in individual operations.

It is essential to have officials thoroughly learn proper practices through such occasions as seminars and ensure they strictly adhere to the code of ethics for government employees.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, March 25, 2019)Speech

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