Tokyo
The Japanese government is trying to convince angry citizens that a new ID system does not herald the beginning of totalitarianism. The program, launched this week, assigns each person an 11-digit number, similar to a U.S. Social Security number, that will be required on federal documents. Privacy advocates said that numbering the citizenry amounts to government surveillance. “The Nazis assigned numbers to Jewish people in exactly the same way,” legal expert Hirohisa Kitano told a news conference. “It is extremely dangerous.” Several large Japanese cities have simply refused to register their citizens.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
