It wasn’t me: Strangers with similar details given same ID in Japan
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When the man went to Tokushima City Hall, its staff searched the national ID number registry and found that someone with the same details lived in another city.
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TOKYO - A foreign resident in Japan unwittingly lived under a fake identity for six months until it came to light that he had been mixed up with an uncannily similar stranger.
The man in his 20s went to register his residency status at Tokushima City Hall in western Japan in November 2023, an official from the municipality told AFP on June 4.
But in a bureaucratic blunder, he was assigned the identity of a different person – who has the same name, same nationality and even the same birthday.
When the man went to the city hall, its staff searched the national ID number registry and found that someone with the same details was living in another city, the official said.
After exchanges with the man, who spoke minimal Japanese, the staff mistakenly thought that he was moving from one city to another, and attached the existing residency details to him.
Half a year later, the national pension service noticed that something was wrong and informed the city about the error.
“We have learnt that there is still room for error” even when proper steps are taken, the Tokushima official said, declining to identify either of the doppelgangers-on-paper.
The other person had already left Japan, meaning the mistake did not come to light sooner, he added.
Japan launched an ID number system called “My Number” in 2015, but some people have said the new system risks human errors and data leaks. AFP
