The top story in the Nikkei on 5/26 was reportedly “Japan Post to Identify Addresses with 7-Character Alphanumeric Codes; Rakuten Group and Others Consider Adoption for Deliveries,” but experts have already begun pointing out problems. Comments on NIKKEI THINK include one from Professor Ichiro Sato of the National Institute of Informatics:
And another from Naoki Asakawa, an editorial board member at Nikkei BP.
Both are exactly right. Of course, on the other hand, there are various benefits as well…
The issue of digitizing postal addresses is something even I was researching in 1999, and SRI (Stanford Research Institute) had probably been working on it even earlier. XRI (eXtensible Resource Identifier) and related work also emerged during this process, raising many issues such as privacy properties and the possibility of authorized-person fraud, a variation on APP fraud—perhaps we could call it APx fraud. Solutions have been proposed at the same time. I very much hope that Japan Post will make use of this body of knowledge.
References
Japan Post Announces Introduction of “Digital Addresses,” Simplifying Online Address Entry: The Nikkei
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC261LZ0W5A520C2000000/
Identify Addresses with 17-Character IDs to Streamline Logistics; Trial in 20 Municipalities in December: The Nikkei
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUA237HM0T21C24A0000000/
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