The diskette is currently used by 1,034 government departments, all but one of which will be phased out in the near future.

We wrote two years ago that floppy disks would disappear completely by 2026. Yet Japan, as the main user, stubbornly held on to the archaic medium. Until now, because the Japanese government has approved the abolition of floppy disks in government agencies.

Taro Kono, Japan’s digital minister, shares his joy with the Reuters news agency. “We have won the war against the floppy disk!” He has long been an advocate of eliminating old technology such as fax machines. They only continue to use the floppy disk as part of a service related to the recycling of vehicles.

The Japanese government has missed the digital battle in many areas. For example, during the Covid pandemic, the government still worked with paper systems to register all tests and vaccinations.

A decade ago, the technology industry turned its back on floppy disks. Sony was the last major manufacturer to stop producing new devices in 2011. In addition, physical storage devices have a limited shelf life, so we recommend that anyone still using floppy disks back up their data to a more modern medium as soon as possible.