"My Number Card Can't Be Used" — Generational Data on the Digital Divide
My Number Card ownership stands at 79.6%. Yet awareness of online government services among those aged 70+ is just 19.1%, and 87.5% of medical facilities have experienced My Number health insurance card issues. Government statistics reveal the structural generational gap between "owning" and "being able to use."
TL;DR
- My Number Card ownership at 79.6% contrasts sharply with just 50.3% awareness of online government services, dropping to 19.1% for those aged 70+
- In FY2025, approximately 27.8 million cards and digital certificates face expiration, with 87.5% of medical facilities reporting My Number health insurance card issues
- The quantitative metric of "ownership rate" structurally renders generational utilization gaps invisible, requiring a shift to outcome-based indicators
What's Happening
A significant generational gap exists between My Number Card ownership rates and actual utilization of online services.
My Number Card ownership has reached 79.6%. With cumulative issuance exceeding 100 million cards, the numbers alone suggest Japan's digital divide is closing.
But between "owning" and "being able to use" lies a deep chasm.
Card ownership stands at 79.6%, yet awareness of online government services is only 50.3%. For those aged 70+, awareness of procedures like moving notifications drops to 19.1% — the gap between "having" and "using" deepens with each generation.
According to the Digital Agency's FY2024 survey, 86.6% of card holders have used at least one card-based service. At first glance, this appears high. But examining the breakdown changes the picture: awareness of online government services (via MynaPortal, etc.) stands at just 50.3%. Nearly half of card holders do not even know that online government services exist.
The generational divide is even starker. While awareness of online procedures like moving notifications reaches 49.7% among those in their teens and 20s, it drops to just 19.1% among those aged 70 and above — a gap of over 30 points. For the one-stop furusato nozei (hometown tax) exception application, awareness among those 70+ is a mere 12.3%.
When overlaid with the reality that internet usage among those aged 80+ is just 36.4%, the contours of who My Number Card's online services cannot reach become clear. Approximately 16 million people — 13% of Japan's population — still do not use the internet, with the majority concentrated among the elderly.
Background and Context
The arrival of the 2025 renewal crisis and surge in medical facility troubles expose contradictions in digitally-premised institutional design.
The Shock of the My Number Card "2025 Problem"
The My Number Card itself has a 10-year validity period, but the digital certificate required for health insurance card functionality expires after just 5 years. This mismatch in expiration timelines is causing large-scale disruption in FY2025.
In FY2025, approximately 27.8 million cards and digital certificates will reach their expiration dates. According to the Japan Federation of Insurance Medical Associations (Hodanren), 87.5% of medical facilities nationwide have experienced My Number health insurance card-related issues since December 2024. Certificate expiration-related problems surged from 14.1% to 31%, more than doubling.
The core issue lies in the notification system. Renewal notices are primarily delivered digitally through MynaPortal, meaning elderly users who do not regularly check MynaPortal cannot notice their expiration. As a result, many discover their card "doesn't work" only at the medical facility counter. Roughly 80% of facilities resort to verifying insurance status through traditional health insurance cards, while the Ministry of Health's recommended "qualification information notice" has not gained sufficient traction.
The Exclusion Built into Digitally-Premised Design
Renewal procedures require the card holder or a representative to physically visit a municipal office. For elderly individuals or those with disabilities who face mobility challenges, this "physical renewal" constitutes a significant barrier. The contradiction is embedded in the system's foundations: to enjoy the convenience of digitalization, non-digital action (visiting a municipal office) is required.
Support frameworks such as the Digital Utilization Support Program do exist. However, while awareness of health insurance card functionality among those 70+ is relatively high at 87.0%, awareness of online administrative procedures remains at just 19.1%. The barrier between "known functions" and "usable functions" runs deeper than awareness numbers suggest.
Younger generations face different challenges. The proportion responding "I don't intend to renew" reaches 20.5% among those in their 20s and 12.5% among those in their 30s, with resistance to facial recognition card readers also reported. The structural reality that digital native generations do not perceive the card as necessary cannot be overlooked.
Reading the Structure
Analysis of how the quantitative metric of ownership rate renders generational utilization gaps invisible.
The Three Layers of Inequality Hidden by "Ownership Rate"
The digital divide surrounding the My Number Card follows the same pattern as the existing three-layer structure of the digital divide.
The first layer — the "access divide" — manifests in generational differences in internet usage rates. The 36.4% usage rate among those 80+ represents a gap of over 60 points compared to the 97% among those aged 13–59. For people who cannot use the internet, even communicating the existence of online services is inherently difficult.
The second layer — the "skills divide" — appears among those who own the card but cannot navigate online procedures. PIN management, MynaPortal navigation, certificate renewal — this series of operations presupposes digital literacy.
The third layer — the "outcome divide" — is where the quality of access to government services diverges between those who can and cannot leverage digital tools. Those who can obtain certificates at convenience stores (satisfaction rate of 84.2%) versus those who must queue at municipal offices. Those who can complete tax returns via e-Tax versus those who must visit the tax office with paper documents. Even with the same card, the benefits derived differ dramatically by generation.
From Quantity to Quality — What an Indicator Shift Demands
When the metric "80% ownership" is used to narrate policy success, it simultaneously renders invisible who is being left behind. By 2040, one in three Japanese will be elderly. The population that "cannot use" digital tools will not shrink — it will be structurally reproduced as aging progresses.
What is needed is a shift from quantitative indicators like ownership rates and issuance numbers to outcome indicators: "How many people completed an online procedure?" "How many recognized their renewal notification?" "How many received medical care without incident?" Quantitative metrics measure "what was distributed" but not "who can actually use it."
A next-generation My Number Card is planned for 2028. Card functionality on Android (from 2026), tax returns completable entirely by smartphone — convenience improvements are indeed advancing. But as long as these functional expansions presuppose smartphone ownership, unless support for those who do not own or cannot operate smartphones is designed simultaneously, the divide will only widen.
As Digital Fascism: Japan's Assets and Sovereignty Disappearing (Mika Tsutsumi, 2021) warned, digitalization is fundamentally a means to enhance citizens' convenience, not an end in itself. Between the ideal of "a digital society that leaves no one behind" and the current policy design that chases ownership rates lies a structural contradiction. Confronting that contradiction and shifting to institutional design centered on "ability to use" — that is the condition for the My Number Card to truly become social infrastructure.
For the broader structure of the digital divide, see Digital Divide 2026 — The Paradox of DX Leaving Behind Those It Should Serve. For the structure of populations that policy cannot reach, see Common Structures of Populations Policy Cannot Reach.
Related Guides
- Introduction to Systems Thinking — Understanding Complex Social Issues Through Structure
- NPO Data Utilization Guide — Supporting Organizational Decision-Making with Data
References
My Number Card Issuance Status — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. MIC
Survey on My Number Card Penetration and Utilization (FY2024) — Digital Agency. Digital Agency
Results of the FY2024 Communications Usage Trend Survey — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. MIC Information and Communications Statistics Database
My Number Health Insurance Card Expiration Troubles at 31% — 3,023 Medical Facilities — Japan Federation of Insurance Medical Associations. Hodanren News
The 2025 Problem of Health Insurance Cards and My Number Health Insurance Card Challenges — Tomoaki Taniguchi. Dai-ichi Life Research Institute
Digital 2026: Japan — DataReportal. DataReportal
