Alien registration in Japan

The gaikokujin toroku-hou has been abolished. Starting from July 2012, foreign residents of Japan will no longer be issued Alien Registration Cards. For the first time, they will be issued common Juminyho certificates as a Japanese citizen would obtain. The recording and registration of foreigners living in Japan will furthermore be handled by the Nyukoku Kanrikyoku(Japanese Immigration Authority). Within 3 years of July 2012, all foreigners living in Japan are required to obtain a Zairyu Card from them. Another change in the law will no longer require foreigners to submit a Kazoku Jikko Henko Todoke. This form was previously required by local municipalities to register the family members and household circumstances of foreigners. The new law does not however affect the koseki system. Foreigners who have not obtained Japanese citizenship will still not be able to obtain a koseki-tohon. Alien registration (外国人登録, gaikokujin tōroku) is a system used to record information regarding aliens resident in Japan. It is handled at the municipal level, parallel to (but separately from) the koseki (family register) and juminhyo (resident register) systems used to record information regarding Japanese nationals.

Foreigners staying in Japan for more than 90 days (excluding diplomatic and SOFA personnel) are required to register within 90 days of landing in Japan. The applicant must provide a completed application form, passport (for applicants 16 years old or older) and two identification photos. The system is voluntary for shorter-term visitors.

Alien registration is a prerequisite to many activities in Japan, such as purchasing a mobile phone, opening a bank account or obtaining a driver's license.^{[citation needed]}

Registered information

The information stored in the alien registration system includes:

• Date of registration
• Name (including any legal alias)
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Nationality and place of residence in home country
• Place of birth
• Employer/school, work/school address and occupation (if any)
• Passport number and date of issuance
• Date of landing in Japan
• Status of residence and duration of stay
• Residential address
• Information regarding household members (including name, date of birth, nationality and relationship)
• Information regarding parent(s) and/or spouse residing in Japan

This information is recorded in a physical document called a tōroku genpyō (登録原票), kept by the municipality in which the subject lives. Any changes in registered information must be reported to the municipal office.

If a resident alien moves within Japan, they are required to report their move to the new municipality of residence, which then takes possession of the tōroku genpyō. The tōroku genpyō is closed when the alien leaves Japan without a re-entry permit, and is then kept in an archive at the Ministry of Justice. Any subsequent entry to Japan by the same person requires a new registration which is kept on a new tōroku genpyō.

Alien registration card

After a person registers as an alien, they are issued a photographic identity document called a Certificate of Alien Registration (外国人登録証明書, gaikokujin tōroku shōmeisho), abbreviated (as is common in Japan) to gaitōshō (外登証), and colloquially referred to in English as an "alien registration card" ("ARC") or "gaijin card." All aliens in Japan are required to carry their passport or ARC at all times. The issuance of an ARC generally takes about two weeks from the filing of the application.

Alien registration may also be evidenced by a certificate of matters in the alien registration records (外国人登録原票記載事項証明書, gaikokujin tōroku genpyō kisai jikō shōmeisho), which is an A4-sized printed copy of the information currently on file, similar in form to the residency registration certificates used by Japanese nationals. Because this form of certificate does not contain the subject's photograph, it is not as widely accepted as the ARC for identity verification purposes, and is mainly used as a temporary certificate when an ARC is unavailable.

The ARC must be surrendered when the foreigner leaves Japan unless they have a valid re-entry permit in their passport.

Legal alias

Registered aliens are allowed to adopt an alias (通称名, tsūshōmei) as a second legal name. Foreigners who are long-term residents of Japan, particularly ethnic Koreans whose families have lived in Japan for generations, often adopt Japanese names as aliases in order to integrate within society. Ethnic Japanese who live in Japan as resident aliens may use a legal alias to reflect their ancestral name. Legal aliases are also used when registering a seal in a different script than the applicant's legal name (e.g., in katakana rather than Latin script).

A person is generally required to use their alias in public relations before registering it. The exact criteria vary by locality, but the most common evidence is mail addressed to the alias name. One common technique which applicants use to create this evidence is to label the post box at their registered residence using the alias, and then mail themselves a postcard or letter addressed to the alias. One may also pay one's NHK television fee under the alias, and then receive official bills using that alias.

Aliases may be registered upon initial alien registration. If the alias is registered subsequently, upon registration of the alias, the registrant receives a handwritten notation indicating the legal alias on the reverse side of their alien registration card. Any registration certificate which is subsequently issued will show the alias in type in parentheses just below the holder's name.

A registered alias may be used on credit cards, health insurance, bank accounts and other documents. However, such documents may cause difficulties in foreign countries where the holder does not have personal identification showing their Japanese alias; thus documents in the registrant's foreign name may be preferable in non-Japanese speaking locales. Foreigners may obtain a Japanese credit card with a photo.

Japanese nationals often use aliases for non-official purposes. For example, women often continue to use their maiden names following marriage, even though they are required to adopt the same family name as their husband for their legal name. However, Japanese nationals are not permitted to use an alias for legal purposes: their name on any official document (e.g. passports and identity cards) must match the name appearing in their family register and resident register.

Issues

Relation with other registration systems

The alien registration system is similar to, but completely separate from, the koseki system used to record Japanese families and the juminhyo system used to record individual residents. If a household contains any non-Japanese members, those members will not appear in the koseki or juminhyo alongside the Japanese members. However, both Japanese and non-Japanese members of a registered alien's family appear in the alien's registration certificate, and therefore one alien registration certificate can be used to prove their familial relationship.

One side effect of this situation is that it is impossible for an alien married to a Japanese national to be registered as the head of their household on a koseki or juminhyo. It is possible, however, to add a footnote to the Japanese spouse's records indicating that the alien is a de facto head of household (事実上の世帯主, jijitsu-jo no setainushi).

Fingerprinting debate

From 1952 onward, alien registration required the applicant to provide fingerprints from all fingers. Resident Koreans and other groups opposed this provision as a human rights violation. The fingerprinting system was repealed for special permanent residents in the 1980s and for other aliens in 1999.

The Japanese government has since introduced fingerprinting and photographing of aliens, claiming that this is a terrorism control measure; fingerprinting is now conducted at the immigration checkpoint when entering Japan and is only conducted using the two index fingers. Japanese nationals and special permanent residents are exempt from the procedure. The practice has angered many foreigners who do not wish to be subjected to fingerprinting, and who believe that the practice is grounded in xenophobia, and can not be realistically justified based on the very small risk of "terrorism", as there has never been an incident of foreign terrorism on Japanese soil.

The fingerprint law is described in a UNHCHR report, PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION The rights of non-citizens, as follows: "An amendment to the Japanese Alien Registration Law recently abolished a fingerprint requirement to which all non-citizens had been subject. The revision of the law relieved about 600,000 residents from having to register their fingerprints. Instead, they will be asked to file their signatures or the names of their family members. Although the fingerprint law has been repealed, foreigners are still required to carry their alien registration cards at all times and violators face heavy penalties including incarceration for up to three years or fines of up to 300,000 yen. This requirement has been widely condemned abroad."

Proposed changes

The Japanese government is currently considering the amendment of the alien registration system. Under the proposed changes, non-Japanese residents would be recorded alongside Japanese residents in the jūminhyō system.

More recently there have been moves to link registration with the Japanese National Health Insurance (国民健康保険 , kokumin kenkou hoken), with the changes becoming effective April 2010.

External links

• Overview of the Japanese residency registration system
• Nishio City, Aichi Prefecture alias registration of a Japanese name explained in Japanese
• About.com article in Japanese on aliases (17 Oct 2006 - in Japanese)
• One Registrant's Experience (May 13, 2008)