The Foreign Ministry will streamline for short-term Japanese travelers overseas the process of reporting their presence to diplomatic missions, in order to speedily track them down during emergencies, ministry sources said Saturday.
Currently, travelers overseas notifying diplomatic missions of their presence must provide information in more than 10 categories, including their occupation, overseas address, emergency contacts in Japan and abroad, and an organization they belong to at home.
Under the simplified system, travelers staying overseas for less than three months will supply information in just a few categories, such as name, date of birth and cellphone number.
The sources said it would be easier to track down many Japanese if text messages can also be sent from consular offices to check on them in the event of emergencies.
The ministry has often had trouble tracking down those on short stays abroad in times of emergencies because few bother to report their presence to diplomatic authorities.
The ministry hopes to launch the new reporting system by the start of the summer holiday season, according to the sources.
By law, Japanese nationals residing abroad for three months or longer are required to report their residency to diplomatic missions. Those staying overseas less than this threshold are not required to report their presence.
The initiative comes in response to growing calls for stronger protection for Japanese nationals overseas in the aftermath of the 2004 quake-tsunami in the Indian Ocean off Sumatra that killed dozens of Japanese, and the hostage crisis in Algeria last year in which Japanese workers died.