Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2001-11 (VOL.52, NO.6)

Special Issue : For the Early Realization of Electronic-Government

• Emerging Electronic-Government Market

In response to the rapid spread of Internet users, government ministries have implemented various IT policies. In 2001, a basic law governing the formation of an advanced information telecommunications network society came into force. In the same year, in March, the government's IT Strategy Headquarters announced the e-Japan Priority Policy Program, which is the basic IT policy of Japan and is aimed at making Japan the world's most advanced IT nation within five years. Also in March, the IT Strategy Headquarters started to tackle the implementation of e-Government, which is one of four priority policy areas identified in the e-Japan policy. The administrative transactions between government offices (G2G) will be done online and so will government/citizen and government/business (G2C and G2B) transactions. The goal is to make the public administration process simpler and more efficient and to lessen the burden on citizens and businesses. Fujitsu is approaching these G2B and G2C markets with two new concepts called "IT from the Office" and "IT from the Home."

• Proposals for Realizing an E-Society in the Near Future

This paper discusses how e-society will benefit citizens and businesses by looking at the IT environment we can expect to form in Japan between 2003 and 2005, which is when e-Government and e-Local Government in Japan is scheduled to be achieved. The structure of Japan's public administrative organizations must be drastically reformed so they can cope with the challenges of today's changing world. This paper describes an electronic administrative society that can be realized through IT and structural reforms and proposes some policies and guidelines for implementing these measures.

• Information Security on the Internet

The e-Japan strategy, which is a strategy to make Japan the most advanced IT country in the world by 2005, has been started. The purpose of the strategy is to create an Internet society in which all information is digitized and universally available via a low-cost and convenient open network. One of the key requirements for such a society is information security. In 2000, many network crimes took place. For example, the homepages of government offices were defaced in January, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks against popular U.S. sites such as Yahoo! occurred in February, and computer viruses spread around the world in May. These events warned us about the vulnerability of Internet society and reminded us of the importance of information security. There are various approaches to achieving an Internet society that is really safe and trustworthy. This paper introduces these approaches from the viewpoint of legislation, regulations, rules, and organization.

• Digital Certification for Electronic-Government Systems

Digital certification for electronic-government systems is now emerging in the form of the Government Public Key Infrastructure (GPKI). This infrastructure defines detailed PKI-based specifications to meet trust requirements for government-citizen and government-business transactions. Some examples of these requirements are certificate profiles, certification path creation and verification, and IC card usage. These specifications are incorporated in the certification and directory components of a Fujitsu system management software product called SystemWalker. GPKI-compliant libraries are also available for application and middleware developers. These libraries can be further enhanced by digital authorization and other features that are based on digital certification and integration with XML technology.

• Trends of XML and Electronic-Government Business

The creation of the Web system has led to the development of Internet related technologies around the world. Perhaps the most interesting of these new technologies is XML, which is a meta-language that is having an effect on nearly all software. The worldwide business framework, ebXML, is based on XML and was released in May 2001. ebXML is expected to generate an increase in the amount of data exchanged in messages and business processes. In Japan, many XML related businesses are already being developed. In this paper, we describe the movement of XML-related specifications, the relation between XML and e-Japan, and some of our other XML activities.

• Data Model of Administrative Record Management and
  Implementation of Record Management Systems

The Freedom of Information Act has been in effect since April 1, 2001. Now, the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts, and Telecommunications has released a guideline for the management of administrative records. In this paper, we describe a data model of administrative record management based on the guideline and clarify the difference between managing paper documents and managing digital documents. We also describe some examples of how this model has been implemented in actual systems.

• Smart Card for Secure and Convenient Life

In fiscal 2001, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) conducted a pilot project called the "Research project on cities equipped with Information Technology through the spread of smart cards." This project will strongly promote the IT revolution in information systems based on smart card systems. In August 2003, smart cards will be issued to people who request them, based on the master records of residents. To make these systems possible, Fujitsu is developing a high-convenience, contactless smart card that uses FRAM memory. This smart card has a function for supporting multiple applications and a public key cryptosystem. Therefore, operational schemes that are different from those used in conventional smart cards are becoming necessary. Fujitsu is also in charge of the development and provision of a multi-application management system that can manage the multiple applications of the smart cards. In the near future, smart cards are expected to become key devices in the IT society.

• Solutions for Electronic Government - A Summary

Fujitsu is providing total IT solutions essential for realizing Electronic Government. These solutions consist of :
(1)"Infrastructure Solutions" centering on advanced Internet-based technologies,
(2)"Office Work Solutions" for speeding up the work process within an organization,
(3)"Public Service Solutions" for a better service to the public, and
(4)"System Operation Solutions" improving the operation of information systems used for various administrative requirements.
While Fujitsu will clarify the relationship of these Electronic Government solutions to various traditional Internet solutions, it also envisages specifically designed solutions for local government, including "@INTERCOMMUNITYVISION" that will integrate solutions for realizing an Electronic Society.

• Concepts of Electronic Local Government Solutions

The e-Japan strategic plan, which was proposed by the Japanese government in 2000, has encouraged prefectures around the country to take electronic local government more seriously. Fujitsu has quickly responded to this trend and has already presented various electronic local government solutions. Fujitsu's main concepts for electronic local government are "Efficiency of office work" and "Proposals for an integrated administration system." Based on these two concepts FUJITSU is making structural proposals for electronic local government that focus on areas in which the government can flexibly respond to people's opinions. This paper introduces systems that are based on these two concepts and a proposal for an electronic local government structure. Also, this paper describes the ideal form of electronic government we are aiming for.

• Solution for Electronic Self-Government in an Electronic Society

The role of local government and its relationship to the central government are changing substantially as a result of the April 2000 "Law Concerning the Decentralization of Government Authority." This law, and the January 2001 "Basic Law on the Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society," obliges local governments to implement Electronic Government. Local governments have to reform administrative processes and eliminate redundant work by actively using Information Technology. Fujitsu will study various methods, for example, cross-border administration; mergers and acquisitions; co-sourcing with the private sector (PFI); and the feasibility of outsourcing, including the use of Application Service Providers (ASPs). The goal here is to give local governments the capability to provide sophisticated and interactive administrative services to the public. This paper discusses ways to provide efficient administrative services.

• Realization of Outsourcing for e-Government

Using an outsourcing service is an effective way to promote a project when outsourcers share a strategic purpose and construct a strong partnership with their clients. Outsourcing services are widely used by businesses, but not by administrations, which have different responsibilities. Furthermore, a lot of problems to be examined are accumulated by both outsourcers and administrative organs. However, we need to promote the use of outsourcing services in various government projects. First, this paper discusses the features and necessity of outsourcing after the introduction of e-Government. Then, it introduces the Internet Data Center (IDC) service for the broadband age, the Application Service Provider (ASP) service, and a regional portal integration service (Town@nifty) as examples of our outsourcing services.

• Demonstration Experiments on LGWAN

There have been various data exchanges over the Internet in recent years. Taking this into consideration, the Japanese government has formed the Millennium Project, which aims to establish the base for Electronic Government by fiscal year 2003. This base, called the Local Government Wide Area Network System, will enable connection to the Kasumigaseki WAN and enable citizens and businesses to do all their administrative procedures over the Internet. The aim of this system is to establish a nationwide network that integrates security, encryption, and authentication technologies. We have completed three years of advanced research on this project and have conducted various demonstration experiments on the Local Government Wide Area Network to prove the system's validity and identify problems. These demonstration experiments are an essential step towards realizing Electronic Government in the future. This paper describes these demonstration experiments.

• Online Application Systems for Ministry of Public Management,
  Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications

The ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (MPHPT), will start partially online-service regarding the administrative procedures by the end of March in 2002, and has experimented on online-service in 2000. We have been conducting the experiments to seek technical obstacles, and legally, by attending the committee of online-service, we have been discussing to put the online-service into practice also. So far it is reported that basically there is no problem found the telecommunications procedures to go online in the course of the experiment. It is expected that the number of plans and the constructions of online systems for e-Government, both of Central and Local Government, is increasing sharply. Fujitsu FIP received an order for experiment, and we also have been participating in the project, and developing, experiment, and evaluation of the system. This paper introduces, as a leading case of its kind, the results of the experiments of the MPHPT and the plans for starting the system operation.

• Governments Equipped with IT : Utilization of Smart Cards

The New Media Development Association (NMDA) is running a project to promote research of cities that have been equipped with IT through the spread of smart cards. The project now has 21 member consortiums in Japan. The objective of the project is to reinforce information technology (IT) innovation by making surveys on the use of smart cards, which will be key devices for electronic administrations in the future. The surveys are designed to assess various points about the issuance and operation of smart cards, for example, whether it will be feasible for the government to operate them, whether they make citizen's lives more convenient, and whether citizens find them easy to use. Another objective of the project is to evaluate whether smart cards will make it easy to integrate services such as the issuance of certificates, services in ombudsman systems, library book borrowing and facility reservations, and medical insurance services, across multiple administrative bodies. This paper outlines the overall project and the procedure for demonstrating wide-area linkage models of smaller local governments. This paper also assesses the issuance and management of smart cards over virtual associations of neighboring, smaller local governments. The project is expected to provide results that will assist in the future development of electronic local government.

• Basic Residential Registers Network System

To improve residential services in our rapidly developing digital network society, it is essential to implement administrative computerization. A key requirement for achieving this is a system that enables efficient, nationwide personal identification. Fujitsu and three other companies have developed such a system, called the Basic Residential Registers Network System. The main functions of this system are as follows: (1) To help create the information infrastructure that is essential for efficient responses to improvements in local administration such as decentralization and the IT Revolution. (2) To make resident's lives more convenient and protect their privacy. Fujitsu is now ready to support this system and is offering its Basic Residential Registers Network System solutions to local governments. This paper describes the outline of the Basic Residential Registers Network System and Fujitsu's solutions based on the system.

• netCommunity

To promote electronic administrations, we need to know how IT affects households and businesses and which administrative services are required. Also, electronic administrations cannot be achieved without structural reform of the existing administrations. Furthermore, the establishment of a top-down system inside administrative organizations is mandatory. netCommunity is a virtual community designed to introduce Fujitsu's stance on e-Government, focusing on current problems that must be solved in order to realize e-Government. netCommunity was updated and released on July 18, 2001 based on (1) the target introduction of an electronic society in three to five years based on the e-Japan Project and (2) explaining how high-ranking government officials could best deal with e-administrations. This paper introduces the basic concepts for updating netCommunity and its new contents.

• Artificial Satellite Development Support System

Information technology (IT) is increasingly being used throughout the life cycle of products to increase production efficiency. In the development of artificial satellites, which has long been a pioneering field for the use of technology, IT is being used to revolutionize parts design. In 1997, Fujitsu was commissioned by the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer (USEF) to develop a system for increasing the efficiency of satellite development based on the concept of CALS. This paper describes the telemetry command information database and the development support database that we have built for satellite development.