Tokyo, 24 June, /AJMEDIA/
The Japanese government plans to popularize the use of online birth registration from fiscal 2026 at the earliest, no longer requiring physical submission of necessary documents to a municipal government.
The country’s family registration law requires a birth registration document along with a doctor-issued birth certificate to be submitted to local governments within 14 days of birth.
Currently, the Justice Ministry only allows online birth registration when submitted with a digitally signed birth certificate. Due to the additional complexity of processing documents with digital signatures, no municipalities have accepted digitally signed birth certificates, effectively requiring all birth registration papers to be submitted or mailed to local government offices.
Under the new system, local governments will be able to receive birth certificates in a digital form directly from medical institutions starting as early as fiscal 2026.
From August, the Justice Ministry will allow online birth registration via a central government website while eliminating the digital signature requirement and allowing parents of newborns to upload a photo of the birth certificate as long as governments of their municipalities have a system in place to accept it.
Some municipalities are expected to start accepting digitally sent birth certificates immediately following the regulatory change.
About 20 percent of responses in a survey conducted last year by the Children and Families Agency on the burden of childbirth were related to the registration procedure, and there were many voices calling for the introduction of electronic submission.
In December, the Digital Agency advocated for the promotion of online birth registration in its interim report on digital administrative reforms.
