Digital minister Taro Kono said Sunday that there have been cases where bank accounts linked to My Number personal identification numbers for receiving public benefits being registered for payments to family members, not to the card holders.
Kono made the revelation during a television program. The cases may include those in which parents registered their bank accounts for the benefit payments to their children.
The government is asking people to register their own bank accounts for receiving public benefits.
"If possible, it would be desirable for people to create bank accounts under the names of their children and register them for the children's receipt of public benefits," Kono said. Payments will not be made in the case of bank accounts of people other than the registered recipients, he added.
The Digital Agency has warned on its website that it is not possible to register parents' bank accounts for their children to receive public benefits.
Local governments remit public benefits related to emergency situations such as outbreaks of infectious diseases and natural disasters to residents' bank accounts linked to their My Number accounts.
