Tokyo: Japan’s digital minister, who has vowed to rid the bureaucracy of outdated tools from the hanko stamp to the fax machine, has now declared war on a technology many haven’t seen for decades – the floppy disk.

The hand-sized, square-shaped data storage item, along with similar devices including the CD or even lesser-known mini disk, are still required for some 1900 government procedures and must go, Digital Minister Taro Kono wrote in a Twitter post.

“We will be reviewing these practices swiftly,” Kono told reporters, adding that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had offered his full support. “Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?”

Japan isn’t the only nation that has struggled to phase out the outdated technology. The US Defence Department only announced in 2019 that it had stopped using floppy disks in a control system for its nuclear arsenal. The disks were first developed in the 1960s.

Sony stopped making the disks in 2011 and many young people would struggle to describe how to use one or even identify one in the modern workplace.

Legal hurdles are making it difficult to adopt modern technology like cloud storage for wider use within the bureaucracy, according to a presentation by the government’s digital taskforce.

The group will review the provisions and plans before announcing ways to improve them by the year-end.

Kono, one of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s most visible politicians who is often cited by voters as a contender for prime minister, has been an outspoken critic of bureaucratic inefficiencies due to archaic practices, most notably the fax machine and the hanko. The latter is a unique, carved red stamp that remains necessary for signing off on official documents such as marriage licences.