JAPAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Hiromi Hayashi, Daisuke Tsuta, Masaki Yukawa and Keiichi Bando, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto
ers received confirmation that they satisfy the requirements of enabling “electronic signatures” from the Digital Agency under Article 4, para - graph 1 of the Electronic Signatures Act. The Legal Affairs Bureau, which operates the real property and company registration sys - tems, does not accept all electronic signatures. Although electronic filing is permitted under laws and regulations, only electronic signatures des - ignated by the Minister of Justice are accepted. Thus, there are still many applicants who apply for registration using physical documents, in which case, the originally signed documents may need to be submitted, depending on the type of registration they are applying for. Time Stamp There are no laws that require time stamps on documents, except when documents on nation - al tax are electronically stored. The Electronic Book Preservation Act requires scanned data of paper-based documents on national tax and originally electronically produced documents on national tax to be accompanied by time stamps before they are electronically stored, except where substitute measures designated by the ordinance of the Electronic Book Preservation Act are taken. Providers of the time stamps must enable proof of non-tampering for the term of the statutorily required storage period and a batch verification for a certain taxable period. Although an authorisation is not required to issue time stamps, the time stamp in compliance with the Electronic Book Preservation Act must be provided by service providers are accredited by MIC. To obtain the accreditation, the time stamps must meet certain requirements under the Public Notice issued by MIC. The Japan Data Com - munications Association, a private association, investigates whether or not the requirements are
met. As of March 2024, four-time stamp service providers were accredited by MIC. Electronic Seal MIC recommends private sector organisations to use electronic seal to certify authenticity and prevent frauds. For this purpose, a framework in which MIC will accredit certain electronic seal services is expected to be implemented in 2025 in line with the final report and principles pub - lished by a study group convened by MIC in April 2024. Japanese Public Key Infrastructure (JPKI) For tax and social welfare purposes, a unique identification number is assigned to each indi - vidual residing in Japan, regardless of nationality. That unique identification number can be used only for the purposes of tax, social welfare or other statutorily defined purposes, and the col - lection and use of such unique number is strictly restricted in the private sector. However, each unique identification number card issued by the government is installed with a digital certificate, which the private sector can use to establish the identity of users online (called the Japanese Public Key Infrastructure or JPKI). From May 2023, the certificate can also be embedded into Android smartphones. A business may verify that digital certificate through the use of the rev - ocation list or Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) service provided by the Japan Agency for Local Authority Information Systems (J-LIS), provided that it obtains authorisation from the Minister of MIC or outsources the verification to an authorised service provider. A considerable number of financial service pro - viders use the JPKI for the purpose of comply - ing with the Know Your Customer (KYC) require - ment. Compared to traditional KYC measures, reliance on JPKI is time and cost efficient. Driv -
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