Japan Ends 'Floppy Disk' Use After 12 Years Since Discontinuation... "Cost and Time Savings"

Some Enforcement Decrees Specify Submission of Floppy Disks and CDs
Despite Product Discontinuation, USB Used at 10 Times the Price

The floppy disk, which was discontinued in Japan 12 years ago, has finally been completely phased out. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced that it will abolish all enforcement ordinances that mandated 'submission via floppy disk.' It is expected to reduce costs and save time for the financial and related sectors that had continued to use floppy disks despite them being 10 times more expensive than USB drives.

On the 23rd, Japan's METI announced that it will eliminate all legal provisions in 34 enforcement ordinances that required document submission via 'floppy disk' and 'CD-ROM.' Although floppy disks ceased production in Japan after 2011, some laws such as the Mining Act and the Act on the Enhancement of Industrial Competitiveness still specified floppy disks and CDs as media for submitting reports, so they have continued to be used in certain fields until now.

As a result, financial institutions and others had to purchase floppy disks costing 4,000 yen (about 36,000 won), which is 10 times more expensive than regular USB drives, to submit government documents. Moreover, since modern computers no longer have floppy disk drives, they also had to buy converters costing over 4,000 yen to use floppy disks.

It is known that some local governments still used floppy disks. In April last year, in Abu Town, Yamaguchi Prefecture, there was controversy when a special COVID-19 support fund of 46.3 million yen (420 million won) intended for 463 households was mistakenly paid to a single household. While the mistake itself was serious, the fact that the town used floppy disks during the bank procedures was reported and criticized as 'anachronistic.'

A set of 10 floppy disks sold on Amazon Japan. (Photo by Amazon Japan)

According to a survey by a Japanese IT specialized online media, some local governments such as Shimane Prefecture and Tottori Prefecture still use floppy disks. The institutions using them responded, "Certain financial institutions require data submission via floppy disk when the local government makes account transfers for public utility fees, etc." Furthermore, floppy disks are not only out of production, but there are few places selling the drives that read them, and repair services have ended, raising concerns that using floppy disks for important data in the future could cause disruptions.

Conscious of this, Prime Minister Kishida announced, "We will eliminate analog regulations by June this year." In response, the Digital Agency has instructed each ministry to review analog regulations. This revision is also part of the 'Digital Principles' for analog structure reform promoted by the Digital Agency.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.