Economic activities making use of the Internet have become indispensable to the daily lives of people 15 years after the so-called IT Basic Law (formally known as the Basic Law on the Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society) was put into shape. Against that background, the Individual Number System, called "My Number", is set to be launched in 2016. The system can be called a new form of social infrastructure that enables partnerships in the information segment among administrative organizations as well as careful policy management through the use of digital data.

In order to make good use of the Individual Number System as social infrastructure, it is necessary to utilize data in a more in-depth manner than before. Careful policy management means making it possible to respond to diversified senses of value and needs of people. Digital data used for analysis and utilization include public data possessed by the central and local governments, and personal data owned by the public and private sectors. Information is the fourth resource after humans, goods and money. The level of skill in data utilization is linked directly to international competitiveness. Therefore, it is essential to put an adequate legislative framework in place for the aggressive promotion of data utilization and digitalization. In so doing, the government should view a free and secure Cross-Border Data Flows of massive data as a prerequisite for innovation and, at the same time, consider the matter from a global perspective.

Toward the promotion of a digital society in Japan, it is necessary to step up the utilization of the Individual Number System in the private sector, switch the form of data from paper to digital information, pump up the industrial use of personal and public data, enhance measures to ensure cyber security, acceleration of maintenance of ITS infrastructure and use of biometrics authentication for more sophisticated use of digital data for social benefits, and make other efforts in a multifaceted manner.