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Businesses in Japan must keep their floppy disk drives for one more year

Businesses in Japan must keep their floppy disk drives for one more year, before changes to the law finally kick in …

The Register reports.

Japan is saying sayonara to the floppy disk, which until now was a required medium for submitting some 1,900 official documents to the government.

The announcement (Japanese, machine translated) last week from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry brings decades of physical media submission requirements in Japan to an end. Japanese minister for digital transformation Taro Kono first confirmed plans to revise the law in 2022, describing his campaign to eliminate physical media as “a war” on floppy disks that would shift submissions to the cloud.

“Under the current law, there are many provisions stipulating the use of specific recording media such as floppy disks regarding application and notification methods,” the ministry said last week.

Don’t throw away that Apple II or Macintosh floppy drive too quickly, though: As Engadget notes, the change only takes effect next year.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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