The Cabinet Approves the Bill for the Act on Partial Division of the Act on Facilitation of Information Processing

1. Purpose of the bill

The government of Japan aims for the achievement of Society 5.0, a policy for making a balance between economic development and solutions to social challenges taking advantage of new digital technologies and a variety of data. To achieve this goal, Japan needs to take measures for: company management reforms in the field of digital technologies, development of foundations for data collaboration and sharing across society, and securing safety, all of which should be conducted in both the public and private sectors; and development of cross-societal foundations therefor.

2. Outline of the bill

The major measures under the bill are as follows:

1. Companies’ management reforms in the aspect of digital technologies

   The bill is to require the government of Japan to formulate guidelines that present to companies ideal approaches to making use of strategic systems in their business management and to create a system in which an authority certifies businesses engaging in outstanding efforts under the guidelines if such businesses file a request therefor.

2. Development of foundations for data collaboration and sharing across society

   The bill is to add a new service by the Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA) of formulating technical specifications commonly necessary to accomplish smooth data collaboration and sharing between different types of businesses or across society.

3. Establishment of safety

   The bill is to add a new service by the IPA of operating a system for assessing the safety of a cloud computing service used in governmental procurement.

4. Other measures

   The bill is to stipulate a provision that the registered information on IT Security Support Providers should cease to be effective unless it is updated every three years and other provisions.

Division in Charge

IT Innovation Division, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau