Japanese Digital Minister Taro Kono said Tuesday he will voluntarily return three months of his salary as a Cabinet member to take responsibility over a string of errors involving the "My Number" national identification system.
While acknowledging the Digital Agency's "slow initial response" in addressing a spate of registration errors that occurred while linking My Number cards to bank accounts for receiving state benefits, Kono announced he would not resign from his post, saying, "I will continue to devote myself to my duties."
A series of personal information leaks and registration errors related to the ID cards have heightened public anxiety about the system, triggering a decline in approval ratings for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet in recent months.
There have been a total of 940 cases involving errors in which bank accounts have been linked to the wrong ID cards nationwide, according to the agency.
Although an official in charge of the matter was notified of the issue by the National Tax Agency in February, they failed to share the information with senior Digital Agency officials for several months.
Kono, who became aware of the problem in June, told a press conference, "The number of cases would not have increased if the information had been shared from the beginning."
"I should take responsibility as the minister in charge for the slow initial response," he added.
Meanwhile, Kono said punishing the official in charge of the issue was "not necessary."
His announcement came after he told a Diet session in June that he intended to penalize himself for the trouble caused.
Under the My Number ID system launched in 2016, every citizen and foreign resident in Japan receives a 12-digit number linking together various personal data, such as taxes and social security information.
Other than the errors involving people's bank accounts, around 8,000 health insurance certificates, 3,000 certificates for disabled people and 100 cases related to pension information have also been linked to the wrong ID cards, according to the government.
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