Digital Transformation is one of the big buzz words that gained a lot of attention over the last few years. In Japan Taro Kono has been pushing ministries and public offices to remove the requirements for traditional hankos and fax machines.

Yet one thing keeps popping up when I have to deal with the immigration bureau or the German embassy. I have to submit documents from one branch of the Japanese authorities to another. The same with the German authorities – take document A from authority A and submit it to authority B. Let’s think about that for a moment and what are potential solutions here.

The 12 Tasks of Asterix

Ok, let’s look at the Japanese immigration bureau. I am not saying other immigration bureaus are any better or worse. I simply have no way of comparing. But when you want to apply, for example, for permanent residency, you need to submit documents such as your resident record (juuminhyo) and some tax documents. These days you can luckily get most of the documents from any convenience store using your MyNumber Card but it still means you need to prepare some documents that you then have to submit. 

All this back and forth from one administrative office to the other reminds me just too much of the twelve tasks of Asterix.

My problem with this is that the Japanese authorities as a whole have the data. They just don’t share them. How about the applicant simply authorizing the immigration bureau to obtain the required information directly from the tax office and local city hall? It could be simply a check box next to “Yes, I allow the immigration bureau to obtain the necessary information to process my application”. And voila! They can obtain the data directly. The benefits are quite obvious too:

1. better customer experience

2. more efficient and faster process

3. less paper – unless they insist on having the documents sent to them by the other authorities as hard copies instead of digital copies)

Now, obviously that would require a solid and shared database behind all this. Despite their recent efforts, having some interconnection and a shared database still seems far away. Knowing that some city halls in Tokyo are still using floppy disks is also rather disheartening.

Don’t get me wrong, I am really happy about the progress Japan has made, especially with the MyNumber Card. I can file my taxes online with it, get all kinds of official documents 24/7 at a convenience store in my neighborhood and it functions as an ID too. They are also planning on putting the health insurance card and driver’s licence into it. That is pretty good progress. But there is still more that can be done.

But Wait, There’s More!

The other example I recently encountered was with the German embassy in Tokyo as it’s time to renew my passport. This brings us to my second point that also applies to how the immigration bureau in Japan handles applications. I have to fill out a form and provide information I have submitted to exactly the same authority in the past, namely when I last renewed my passport. A lot of the data points are the same and won’t change. I also need to submit my birth certificate; a document that I have to obtain from my city hall back in Germany. Luckily, I still have some family in Germany and can hopefully get this sorted but what about people who don’t have a connection to Germany anymore? What are we supposed to do to obtain that document? 

Here are three options to solve the problem:

1. use the same document that I submitted last time I renewed my passport – the embassy has the document!

2. allow the use of soft copies. That would allow people to use a copy of the document that they obtained last time they renewed their passport

3. same as above, the embassy could obtain the data directly from the German authorities.

Estonia has done an amazing job leading from the front where 99% of all public services are offered online and in digital form. Estonia rarely comes up in the news unless it’s to highlight how well they are doing with their digitization. The country ranks 100th in terms of GDP and is by no means an economic powerhouse. So you would hope and expect that countries like Germany and Japan have the means and the technology to make the necessary changes too. 

Putting It All Together

So, here they are, my two big pet peeves:

1. Submitting the same information I previously submitted

2. Submitting documents that they could easily obtain from another arm of the administration

The above can be easily solved it it was simply being made a priority. Share information between different authorities (on an “as needed” and individual authorization basis) and simply reuse the information you received in the past.

People who know me know that I am very focused on customer experience. At the same time I am process and efficiency oriented. In both areas there are massive shortcomings here and I really hope that public services all around the world can be improved. Even public servants are on the receiving end of these services at some point in their life. So even if they do not do it for the public, it’s also in their own self interest. I have to add here though that my experience with Japanese authorities such as the city hall and the tax office have always been great. The people really do try their best to help. That’s more than I can say for the German authorities I had to deal with. Add it to the list of reasons I made Japan my home 😉