The Justice Ministry plans to introduce an online computer network to speed up the processing of information on foreigners arriving in Japan and facilitate the tracking of suspected terrorists, ministry sources said Friday.
Immigration officials currently use a noncomputer-linked centralized system to process information on foreign arrivals by shipping all arrival documentation to Tokyo for data entry.
It sometimes takes a week for the files to arrive in Tokyo if the point of entry is far from the capital, the sources said.
As a result, immigration authorities cannot provide timely information on arriving foreigners to domestic or foreign law-enforcement authorities.
The new system, to be installed at immigration control offices nationwide, would enable authorities to process information such as names, nationality and passport number at the point of entry on the day of arrival and feed the information to Tokyo via the Internet.
The Justice Ministry is seeking 310 million yen from the extraordinary budget for the current fiscal year to acquire the system and put it in place at the start of next year.
The ministry also plans to update the passport identification system in smaller airports to enable immigration officials to check for fake travel documents. Advanced passport identification systems are now available only in major airports.