Launched in 2021 by Minister of Digital Technology Taro Kono and dubbed the “war on floppy disks,” this campaign was a significant step towards technological advancement. The Japanese government’s digital agency, created to improve government technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, has repealed 1,034 regulations on the use of floppy disks.

The move is part of a broader push to modernize Japan’s technology infrastructure. In January 2024, the government lifted a requirement that physical media such as floppy disks and CD-ROMs be used for 1,900 types of documents sent to government agencies.

While the decision may seem late, given that the last major floppy disk maker, Sony, stopped production in 2011, it highlights the difficulties of modernising legacy systems in large bureaucracies.

Problems with old technologies

The reliability of the old data storage format is a concern. For example, in 2021, Tokyo police “lost” floppy disks containing information on dozens of applicants for public housing. In addition, modern systems often cannot read floppy disks, which have a maximum capacity of only 1.44MB.

Until recently, Japan was not the only country using floppy disks.

• San Francisco’s Muni Metro light rail system uses a floppy disk-controlled train control system to date and plans to continue doing so through 2030.
• The US Air Force used 8-inch floppy disks until 2019.
• Additionally, floppy disks are still common in various industries such as airline cargo and CNC machine tools in Japan.

Despite being known as a technologically advanced country, Japan has been criticized for using outdated technology. In the 2023 Institute for Management Development (IMD) global digital competitiveness rankings, Japan ranked 32nd out of 64 economic regions. With the government no longer relying on floppy disks, more steps are expected to be taken to modernize the country’s technology.