“We won the war on floppy disks
An important milestone for modernization is the fact that the Japanese government has abolished the use of floppy disks in all of its systems.
The achievement comes two or three decades after the technology’s peak and marks a major milestone in Japan’s ongoing drive to digitalize and streamline government operations.
By mid-June, the Digital Agency had successfully abolished 1,034 regulations governing the use of floppy disks, leaving only one environmental regulation, which concerned vehicle recycling.
Floppy disks are now extinct in Japan
The floppy disk was an iconic tool used in early computers until the 2000s. Today, the floppy disk is still the universally recognized symbol for storing documents.
While developments have seen CDs, DVDs, and USBs come and go (to some extent), making way for the cloud, floppy disks have continued to be used in Japan due to their numerous advantages. They are known for their reliability and stability, but are also less hackable than more modern solutions.
The floppy disk eradication follows the creation of the Digital Agency, which was tasked with creating a more efficient and digitally savvy government framework. Taro Kono, Japan’s minister for digital transformation and head of the agency, has been at the forefront of the country’s digitalization efforts since taking office in August 2022.
Speak with ReutersKono declared: “We won the floppy disk war on June 28!”
Despite this progress, however, Japan’s journey toward full digitalization has faced numerous challenges. The failure of a contact tracing app during the pandemic and the slow adoption of the My Number digital identification card have highlighted these issues.
With Kono at the helm, however, Japan’s ambitious plans to phase out less efficient systems could make significant progress.