Japan ends two-year ‘floppy disk war’, scraps rules requiring use of old technology

About two years after Japan’s digital minister publicly declared a “war on floppy disks,” Japan reportedly stopped using floppy disks in government systems as of June 28.

According to a Reuters report on Wednesday, the Japanese government has “eliminated the use of floppy disks in all of its systems.” The report notes that by mid-June, the Japan Digital Agency (a body created during the COVID-19 pandemic to update government technology) “had lifted all 1,034 regulations governing their use, except for one environmental restriction related to vehicle recycling.” This suggests there is at least one government application that may still rely on floppy disks, although more details are not available.

Digital Minister Taro Kono, a politician at the forefront of the Japanese government’s technology modernization, has made public his distaste for floppy disks and other old office technology such as fax machines. Kono, who is reportedly considering a second presidential run, told Reuters in a statement today:

On June 28th we won the floppy disk war!

Although Kono announced plans to eliminate floppy disks from government use only two years ago, it has been 20 years since floppy disks were at their peak and 53 years since they debuted. It wasn’t until January 2024 that the Japanese government stopped requiring physical media like floppy disks and CD-ROMs for 1,900 types of documents submitted to the government, such as business documents and citizen application forms.

The timeline may be surprising, considering that the last company to make floppy disks, Sony, discontinued them in 2011. As a storage medium, floppy disks obviously can’t compete with today’s options, since most floppy disks max out at 1.44MB (2.88MB disks were also available). And you’ll be hard-pressed to find a modern system that can still read the disks. There are also fundamental concerns about the old storage format, such as the Tokyo police who reportedly misplaced a pair of floppy disks containing the information of dozens of applicants for public housing in 2021.

But Japan isn’t the only government body with surprisingly recent ties to the technology. For example, San Francisco’s Muni Metro light rail uses a train control system that uses software running on floppy disks and plans to continue doing so until 2030. The U.S. Air Force used 8-inch floppy disks until 2019.

Outside of the public sector, floppy disks are still common in many industries, including embroidery, airline cargo, and CNC machines. We reported on Chuck E. Cheese using floppy disks for its animatronics back in January 2023.

Resistance to modernization

Now that the Japanese government believes in ending the use of floppy disks, it will be watched to see if they make any other upgrades.

Despite its various technological achievements, the country has a reputation for clinging to outdated technology. The Institute for Management Development (IMD) 2023 World Digital Competitiveness Rankings ranked Japan 32nd out of 64 economies. The IMD says its rankings measure “the ability and willingness of 64 economies to embrace and explore digital technologies as a key driver of economic transformation in business, government and broader society.”

It may take some time before the government is ready to abandon some of the older technologies. For example, government officials have reportedly resisted moving to the cloud for administrative systems. Kono has urged government agencies to stop requiring hanko personal stamps in 2020, but the movement of stamps is happening at a “glacial pace,” according to The Japan Times.

Many workplaces in Japan are also opting for faxes over email, and plans to remove faxes from government offices in 2021 were scrapped due to opposition.

Some believe that Japan’s reliance on older technologies is due to the convenience and efficiency of analog technologies, as well as government bureaucracy.