Good morning, everyone.
Thank you sincerely for joining MyData Japan 2025.
Those gathered here today include people from companies and government, engineers, researchers, and citizens—people with different positions and areas of expertise. Yet we have gathered under a common purpose: to build a better relationship with data across society.
The MyData initiative has advanced from “ideal” to “institution,” and now it is moving toward “practice.” Today is a special milestone in that journey.
Put simply, MyData means:
“enabling me to decide about my information.”
This is not merely about protecting personal information. It is a matter of fundamental human dignity and choice that affects every aspect of healthcare, education, government, and daily life.
We seek to create a society in which:
- Control over information returns from organizations to individuals.
- We shift from “being used” to “putting it to use.”
- “One-click rights,” such as consent, correction, deletion, and reuse, can be exercised in everyday life.
The MyData principles are our compass for realizing this vision. And everyone gathered here today is an agent of this transformation.
How aware are we of how information about us is being used?
The moment we open a smartphone, use a transit IC card, or press “Like” on social media—
each time, “my data” may be accumulated somewhere, analyzed, and used in someone else’s decision-making.
“Who decides what makes me who I am?”
“Was the consent I thought I chose truly informed and acceptable to me?”
These questions urge us to reconsider how we relate to our own information.
MyData is a new design philosophy for society that asks not only “how should information be protected?” but also “how should information be put to use?” and “how should we live in the information age?”
This year’s theme is “MyData in Practice”—
the challenge of advancing “principles” into “design,” and “design” into “implementation.”
Under the 2024 theme “MyData by Design,” we explored design in depth from each BLTS perspective—business, law, technology, and society. This year, we take that one step further and tackle the question of how to make it work in the real world.
At this conference,
- Implementation of decentralized identity using DID/VC
- Governance design for the use of camera images
- The information environment surrounding children and their protection
and other forms of practical knowledge will be shared through real-world projects.
Through dialogue and collaboration among diverse participants, knowledge from the field is gathered and becomes a new common foundation. That is the true value of MyData Japan.
Finally, I would like to ask everyone:
- Does your organization have mechanisms that enable individuals to put information to use?
- Does the technology you work on support human dignity and freedom?
- Can you speak for yourself about your own information?
MyData is not something someone else will do for us.
MyData is society itself, shaped by your practice.
I hope that even one encounter or lesson from today will lead to action starting tomorrow. The accumulation of such actions will form the foundation of a society where each person can be themselves 5 years and 10 years from now.
And now—
I hereby declare MyData Japan 2025 open.
Thank you.
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