An advisory task force headed by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi adopted a plan April 16 to foster e-commerce and to address related privacy concerns. Implement the technical and legal infrastructure required to use digital signatures in place of handwritten signatures and personal seals. Study the measures needed to protect individual privacy in e-commerce transactions and on the Internet. Rather, it focuses on providing the physical, legal and social infrastructure on which e-commerce can be built.
Considerable opportunity exists, though, for close government-industry cooperation.
A case in point is the collaborative effort of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and major Japanese firms, including Fuji Bank, Ltd., Nomura Securities Co., Ltd., Seibu Department Stores Ltd., Sony Corp. and IBM Japan Ltd., to develop a standard Internet account-settlement system. Currently, e-commerce in Japan is hindered by incompatibilities among payment systems, such as credit cards, bank transfers and cash on delivery. The participants already have decided to base their solution on the Secure Electronic Transaction standard developed by major credit-card issuers. MPT plans to begin testing Internet-based settlement services next year with some 20,000 postal savings customers. Tokyo also is moving to bring laws and law enforcement into the Internet age.