International
Japan steps up push to get public buy-in to digital IDs
TOKYO (AP) — Japan has stepped up its push to catch up on digitization by telling a reluctant public they have to sign up for digital IDs or possibly lose access to their public health insurance.
As the naming implies, the initiative is about assigning numbers to people, similar to Social Security numbers in the U.S. Many Japanese worry the information might be misused or that their personal information might be stolen. Some view the My Number effort as a violation of their right to privacy.
So the system that kicked off in 2016 has never fully caught on. Fax machines are still commonplace, and many Japanese conduct much of their business in person, with cash. Some bureaucratic procedures can be done online, but many Japanese offices still require “inkan,” or seals for stamping, for identification, and insist on people bringing paper forms to offices.
Now the government is asking people to apply for plastic My Number cards equipped with microchips and photos, to be linked to drivers licenses and the public health insurance plans. Health insurance cards now in use, which lack photos, will be discontinued in late 2024. People will be required to use My Number cards instead.
That has drawn a backlash, with an online petition demanding a continuation of the current health cards drawing more than 100,000 signatures in a few days.
Opponents of the change say the current system has been working for decades and going digital would require extra work at a time when the pandemic is still straining the medical system.
But the reluctance to go digital extends beyond the health care system. After numerous scandals over leaks and other mistakes, many Japanese distrust the government’s handling of data. They’re also wary about government overreach, partly a legacy of authoritarian regimes before and during World War II.
Saeko Fujimori, who works in the music copyright business, said she’s supposed to get My Number information from the people she deals with, but many balk at giving it out. And no one is all that surprised she has trouble getting that information, given how unpopular it is.
“There is a microchip in it, and that means there could be fraud,” said Fujimori, who has a My Number but doesn’t intend to get the new card. “If a machine is reading all the information, that can lead to mistakes in the medical sector, too.”
“If this was coming from a trustworthy leadership and the economy was thriving, maybe we would think about it, but not now,” Fujimori said.
Something drastic may have to happen for people to accept such changes, just as it took a devastating defeat in World War II for Japan to transform itself into an economic powerhouse, said Hidenori Watanave, a professor at the University of Tokyo.
“There’s resistance playing out everywhere,” he said.
Japanese traditionally take pride in meticulous, handcraft-quality workmanship and many also devote themselves to carefully keeping track of documents and neatly filing them away.
“There are too many people worried their jobs are going to disappear. These people see digitization as a negation of their past work,” said Watanave, who spells his last name with a “v” instead of the usual “b.”
The process of getting an existing My Number digitized is time consuming and very analog, it turns out. One must fill out and mail back forms sent by mail. Last month’s initial deadline was extended, but only about half of the Japanese population have a My Number, according to the government.
“They keep failing in anything digital and we have no memories of successful digital transformation by the government,” said Nobi Hayashi, a consultant and technology expert.
Hayashi cited as a recent example Cocoa, the government’s tracing app for COVID-19, which proved unpopular and often ineffectual. He says the digital promotion effort needs to be more “vision-driven.”
“They don’t show a bigger picture, or they don’t have one,” Hayashi said.
Koichi Kurosawa, secretary-general at the National Confederation of Trade Unions, a 1 million-member grouping of labor unions, said people would be happier with digitization if it made their work easier and shorter, but it was doing just the opposite at many Japanese work places.
“People feel this is about allocating numbers to people the way teams have numbers on their uniforms,” he said. “They are worried it will lead to tighter surveillance.”
That’s why people are saying No to My Number, he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
Yojiro Maeda, a cooperative research fellow at Nagasaki University who studies local governments, thinks digitization is needed, and My Number is a step in the right direction.
“You just have to do it,” Maeda said.
On Monday, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida acknowledged concerns about My Number cards. He told lawmakers in Parliament that the old health insurance cards will be phased out but the government will arrange for people to continue to use their public health insurance if they are paying into a health plan.
Japan’s Minister of Digital Affairs, Taro Kono, acknowledged in a recent interview with The Associated Press that more is needed to persuade people of the benefits of going digital.
“To create a digitized society, we need to work on developing new infrastructure. My Number cards could serve as a passport that will open such doors,” Kono said. “We need to win people’s understanding so that My Number cards get used in all kinds of situations.”
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Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
Business
John Deere ends support of ‘social or cultural awareness’ events, distances from inclusion efforts
NEW YORK (AP) — Farm equipment maker John Deere says it will no longer sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events, becoming the latest major U.S. company to distance itself from diversity and inclusion measures after being targeted by conservative backlash.
In a statement posted Tuesday to social media platform X, John Deere also said it would audit all training materials “to ensure the absence of socially-motivated messages” in compliance with federal and local laws. It did not specify what those messages would include.
Moline, Illinois-based John Deere added “the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.” But it noted that it would still continue to “track and advance” the diversity of the company, without providing further details.
The move from the company known on Wall Street as Deere & Co. arrives just weeks after rural retailer Tractor Supply ended an array of its corporate diversity and climate efforts. Both announcements came after backlash piled up online from conservative activists opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, sponsorship of LGBTQ+ Pride events and climate advocacy.
Conservative political commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck appeared to lead the criticism of both companies on X.
Starbuck posted that John Deere’s announcement marked “another huge win in our war on wokeness,” but said that it still wasn’t enough, calling on the company to completely eliminate its DEI policies and no longer participate in Corporate Equality Index scoring from the Human Rights Campaign, the largest advocacy group for LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S.
Starbuck, a 35-year-old Cuban American, told The Associated Press that “it’s not lost on me my kids would benefit from this stuff,” but he opposes hiring decisions that factor in race, as well as DEI initiatives, employee resource groups that promote non-professional activities and any policies that in his view allow social issues and politics to become part of a company culture.
“People should go to work without having to feel like they have to behave a certain way in order to be acceptable to their employer,” he said.
Starbuck and other conservative activists celebrated Brentwood, Tennessee-based Tractor Supply for taking a more aggressive approach than John Deere last month by pledging to eliminate all of its DEI roles while retiring current DEI goals and stop submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign.
But the move also sparked outrage from critics of the new position, who have argued that Tractor Supply is giving in to hate.
John Deere’s move has faced similar pushback. Eric Bloem, vice president of programs and corporate advocacy at the Human Rights Campaign, called the announcement “disappointing” and “a direct result of a coordinated attack by far-right extremists on American business.”
National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd Jr. called for the resignation of Deere & Co CEO John C. May and a boycott of the company on Wednesday.
The organization said that Deere “continues to move in the wrong direction” in regards to DEI and has “failed to show its support” for Black farmers since NBFA’s founding. It also noted Tuesday’s announcement arrives one month after the company agreed to pay $1.1 million in back wages and interest to 277 Black and Hispanic job applicants after the Labor Department alleged hiring discrimination.
The conservative backlash against DEI has extended to companies across industries, including previous boycott campaigns against Bud Light and Target over their LGBTQ+ marketing. Starbuck said he has a list of companies he is thinking of posting content about, starting with ones that have traditionally conservative customer bases. He declined to name his next target.
The ensuing changes to policy and corporate commitments aren’t just coming from company boardrooms. Leading HR organization Society for Human Resource Management last week announced that the 340,000-member lobbying and advocacy group will drop “equity” from its diversity and inclusion approach, although it said it remains committed to advancing it.
“Effective immediately, SHRM will be adopting the acronym ‘I&D’ instead of ‘IE&D,” the group said in a statement posted on LinkedIn. “By emphasizing Inclusion-first, we aim to address the current shortcomings of DE&I programs, which have led to societal backlash and increasing polarization.”
The move, in turn, triggered a backlash among LinkedIn users, some calling it “backward” and “shameful.” Others replied that they were planning to cancel their SHRM memberships.
Still others stress that prioritizing equity is critical for leveling the playing field, saying this kind of omission signals a shift in messaging that could have chilling consequences on efforts toward workplace equality.
In an interview with The AP on Wednesday, SHRM’s president and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. said the organization’s focus groups found general consensus around prioritizing diversity and inclusion, but “the E triggered like all sorts of emotions and responses.”
“You either loved it, you hated it,” he said. “If it’s so polarizing that people just abandon it, then we all lost.”
Legal attacks against companies’ diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have also drawn more attention following the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling to end affirmative action in college admissions. Many conservative and anti-DEI activists have been seeking to set a similar precedent in the working world.
“The blowback and the potential vulnerabilities are real,” said Jen Stark, co-director of the Center for Business and Social Justice at BSR, a consulting network of more than 300 companies.
A vast majority of companies are “not taking the bait” and keeping policies in place “because it makes good business sense and it’s also the right thing to do,” she said. Still, she added, external pressures are building up.
The U.S. is also in a fraught presidential election year, with bubbling conversations about the prospect of Project 2025 — a term for the Heritage Foundation’s nearly 1,000-page handbook for the next Republican administration, which has become a cudgel Democrats are wielding against former President Donald Trump.
Stark noted that companies across industries are bracing for the prospects of potential changes in terms of their federal contracts, for example, which have historically been a powerful way to promote equity in workplaces.
That doesn’t mean companies will stop their DEI efforts entirely, she added, but they may have to change language or find new workarounds.
“All these flash points that companies are, sort of, limping between is the new normal,” she said.
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AP Business Writer Lisa Leff in London contributed to this report.
___ Savage is a reporter on the women in the workforce team. The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Business
U.S hits Mexican accountants and firms with sanctions for timeshare scams that support drug cartel
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Tuesday imposed sanctions on a group of Mexican accountants and firms allegedly linked to a timeshare fraud ring run by the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.
Three accountants were hit with sanctions, along with four Mexican real estate and accounting firms. In addition, Treasury and the FBI issued a notice to banks with a reminder to be vigilant in detecting and reporting timeshare fraud perpetrated by Mexico-based transnational criminal organizations.
Time share fraud targeting Americans results in tens of millions of dollars in losses annually. In 2022, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 600 complaints with losses of roughly $39.6 million from victims contacted by scammers regarding timeshares owned in Mexico.
The new sanctions come after the U.S. in April 2023 sanctioned members or associates of the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel for timeshare fraud that allegedly targeted elderly Americans.
“Cartel fraudsters run sophisticated teams of professionals who seem perfectly normal on paper or on the phone – but in reality, they’re money launderers expertly trained in scamming U.S. citizens,” said Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson. “Unsolicited calls and emails may seem legitimate, but they’re actually made by cartel-supported criminals. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
The FBI shares tips on how to avoid timeshare fraud: Be cautious of uninvited calls, texts, or emails from anyone interested in a timeshare. Be wary of high-pressure and time-sensitive offers that require an immediate response, research everyone you are in contact with, and contact offices independently to confirm that you’re talking with a real company representative, and hire a real estate agent or lawyer you trust.
LONDON (AP) — Amazon won’t have to pay about 250 million euros ($273 million) in back taxes after European Union judges ruled in favor of the U.S. e-commerce giant Thursday, dealing a defeat to the 27-nation bloc in its efforts to tackle corporate tax avoidance.
The ruling by the EU’s top court is final, ending the long-running legal battle over tax arrangements between Amazon and Luxembourg’s government and marking a further setback for a crackdown by antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager.
The Court of Justice backed a 2021 decision by judges in a lower court who sided with Amazon, saying the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, had not proved its case that Amazon received illegal state support.
“The Court of Justice confirms that the Commission has not established that the tax ruling given to Amazon by Luxembourg was a State aid that was incompatible with the internal market” of the EU, the court said in a press release.
Amazon welcomed the ruling, saying it confirms that the company “followed all applicable laws and received no special treatment.”
“We look forward to continuing to focus on delivering for our customers across Europe,” the company said in a statement.
The commission said it “will carefully study the judgment and assess its implications.”
The case dates back to 2017, when Vestager charged Amazon with unfairly profiting from special low tax conditions since 2003 in tiny Luxembourg, where its European headquarters are based. As a result, almost three-quarters of Amazon’s profits in the EU were not taxed, she said.
The EU has taken aim at deals between individual countries and companies used to lure foreign multinationals in search of a place to establish their EU headquarters. The practice led to EU states competing with each other and multinationals playing them off one another.
