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Japan Post launches 'digital address' system

• halpow 1y ago
  Japan is the perfect place for this because their house numbering system already requires you to look at a map to find it. For those unfamiliar with it, numbers are incremented progressively around a block as doors are added to it. So the door "Block SanChome 4" could be on the opposite side of the building from "Block SanChome 6"
  • sabellito 1y ago
    This won't change. The article starts: > Japan Post said Monday that it has launched a "digital address" system that links seven-digit combinations of numbers and letters to physical addresses. Their proposal is useful when one wants to move addresses.
    • elif 1y ago
      Also useful for anyone who wants their personal residence recorded in less databases
      • Freak_NL 1y ago
        Doesn't it just give the shop a way to fetch the full address from some public API? I don't think you can just jot down that number on a box and have it delivered. > Under the system, users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites.
      • montroser 1y ago
        Yeah but now it's a personal identifier that actually moves with you when you move to a different physical address. In terms of privacy, that might just be worse.
        • pezezin 1y ago
          How do you plan to order anything from an online shop without the shop knowing your delivery address?
          • klausa 1y ago
            You put a trusted intermediary (JP Post) that knows the address in the middle, and provide the seller with an identifier that the intermediary can associate with your physical address. That’s already how it works if you buy something trough the online marketplaces here - Mercari et. al. Mercari knows addresses of all counterparties, but the label that the seller puts on the package doesn’t have the destination address, and the label the package has when it reaches your door doesn’t have the seller’s address either.
    • bobthepanda 1y ago
      I don’t think they’re saying that the system is intended to replace old addressing but that the new proposed system is fine because the old addressing system, like this new one, is not very good at providing intuitive physical wayfinding anyways.
  • pezezin 1y ago
    It is even more complex than that: within a neighborhood you have "chome", then blocks, then buildings. All three levels are numbered chronologically and don't follow any kind of logical order. Oh, and streets don't have names. Honestly, I don't know how people did before modern navigation systems. So yeah, this system looks like a godsend, I want to try it as soon as possible. * I don't know if there is a translation for this word.
    • Tor3 1y ago
      Indeed - at least now you can enter the property address (e.g. a four-digit number followed by a dash and another number, as in this small town) into google maps and it'll show you where it is. Not long ago it was more like driving in the general direction while hanging on the mobile phone and trying to agree on a landmark (e.g. a 7/11 or a tower or an office building) while trying to find the place. Before mobile phones? Well, there's this big big sign in a park near the town center, and on that you can find family names on a kind of map.. of course that had this assumption that Nobody Never Moves. So, no, I don't know how people did this in the past.. "Where the Streets Have No Names", the U2 song. I wouldn't have imagined, but that's how it is.
    • xandrius 1y ago
      > Honestly, I don't know how people did before modern navigation systems. The good old: ask a local about it. Nowadays people seems so against just stopping a random passerby to ask them a question. (obviously not feasible with the huge amount of deliveries we do today but back then it would have been reserved for the very rich or rare occasions)
  • SwtCyber 1y ago
    In that context, something like a stable digital address actually makes way more sense
  • Asooka 1y ago
    This is pretty much how we do it in Bulgaria as well, with almost all residential apartment buildings having no street address, it's just "City region X, building number Y". Online maps services are almost unusable for some places because they simply do not want to handle any system other than "street name + street number".
• deleted 1y ago
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• nan60 1y ago
  This is really cool. Japanese addresses are longer and more complex than most North American/European ones, so this especially makes sense there.
  • SoftTalker 1y ago
    Even in the USA, the full 9-digit "Zip + 4" code will often identify a specific building. And some really big customers (e.g. the IRS) will have their own 5-digit zip code.
    • deleted 1y ago
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    • reaperducer 1y ago
      Even in the USA, the full 9-digit "Zip + 4" code will often identify a specific building. It can be even more granular than that. ZIP+4+2 is a thing.
• donnachangstein 1y ago
  This being Japan, you still have to sign for your digital delivery with a rubber ink stamp.
  • nickpeterson 1y ago
    Probably print a receipt using a fax machine hooked to a pc-engine.
    • pezezin 1y ago
      You misspelled PC-98.
  • Freak_NL 1y ago
    I wish we had those hanko. Signing off on any parcel is complete bullshit at the moment. Most delivery drivers neglect to ask for one (or that code you are supposed to give them for some delivery services), and when they do, you just make some arbitrary squiggle on their handheld device — it's not like you can actually do a faithful reproduction of your signature on those, even in 2025, and I certainly can't using my finger instead of a pencil or pen. Yesterday a courier brought a pallet with my new drill press costing over €500. Signature required, but when I asked he told me not to worry, there was no need…
    • donnachangstein 1y ago
      UPS driver left a $3500 MacBook Pro on my front steps, didn't even ring the bell... signature required my ass.
      • ghaff 1y ago
        Don't know the last time I've been required to sign for something. That said, I live in a semi-rural location very well off the road.
      • ortusdux 1y ago
        Most delivery companies enacted signature exemption rules for covid and are in no hurry to rescind them. Getting signatures takes time, which affects their bottom line.
• perihelions 1y ago
  "We can solve any problem by introducing an extra level of indirection" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_software_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_softwar...
• isk517 1y ago
  When I read 7-digit my first thought was this seems a bit short sighted. Then I saw the the address was going to be a combination of letters and numbers. Since this is the English page for The Japan Times I'll give them a pass on using the wrong word.
  • elif 1y ago
    Letters are digits. Just not base 10. Alphanumeric codes are mathematically speaking a completely identical set to base 36 numerics
  • lyall 1y ago
    FWIW The Japan Times is a fully English language publication, so no need to excuse anything based on language ability
  • RaoulP 1y ago
    I was looking for this comment as I thought 7 digits wasn't enough for the 55,000,000+ households in Japan. I missed the fact that it's alphanumeric - problem solved.
• frzen 1y ago
  This sounds like the Irish Eircode system 7 characters made up of letters and numbers let you find a specific building.
  • ProblemFactory 1y ago
    This seems more interesting, as it's not a code for a physical address but a lookup key for one. You can update your code to point to a new address when you move: > Their digital addresses will not change even if their physical addresses change. Their new addresses will be linked to the codes if they submit notices of address changes.
• TulliusCicero 1y ago
  By letters do they mean Latin/English alphabet, or hiragana/katakana characters?
  • perihelions 1y ago
    Apparently it's Latin, https://lp.da.pf.japanpost.jp/svg/digitaladdress_img_01_pc.svg https://lp.da.pf.japanpost.jp/svg/digitaladdress_img_01_pc.s... https://lp.da.pf.japanpost.jp/ https://lp.da.pf.japanpost.jp/
    • card_zero 1y ago
      Ooh, the logo is an @ that's also a roadmap.
      • WillAdams 1y ago
        Roadmap or house?
        • card_zero 1y ago
          Triple metaphors? I don't like it now, they went too far.
      • ahmedfromtunis 1y ago
        Isn't it a house (with a roof and a chimney)?
  • numpad0 1y ago
    Non-ASCII symbols are kind of non-canonical and don't parse well, even today. Japanese developers are deeply aware of that, so generated identifiers in Japanese systems are almost always either hyphenated numeric or occasionally ASCII alphanumeric. Only when said identifier are guaranteed to never need programmatic handling, or when the system can have complete control of input and output, non-ASCII characters start appearing.
• 762236 1y ago
  Everyone's got an address in the world-wide plus-code system, and they're used for deliveries in many countries: maps.google.com/pluscodes/
  • xbryanx 1y ago
    How do plus codes handle elevations(floors) or rooms within a building? It seems that the Japan Post system allows for this.
    • varenc 1y ago
      This is a key distinction. Plus codes map to a 14m x 14m square area and aren't aware of things like building units or elevation. If you live in a high rise apartment, a plus code does not identify you precisely. Sadly to do this you need some knowledge of a structure's internals. It makes sense it's being done on the national level in Japan.
      • chipsa 1y ago
        The default +2 plus code is ~14m resolution. But you can add more characters to the end to get higher res. 5 more gets you down to sub centimeters.
    • genocidicbunny 1y ago
      Or even just addresses that are split between multiple pluscodes? For example, a duplex where the front door of each unit is adjacent to the other. Even at the 4m resolution, that means both units front doors (and thus street addresses) can fall into one single pluscode.
  • mynameisvlad 1y ago
    > Everyone's got an address in the world-wide plus-code system Debatable considering it's based on lat/lon only. > used for deliveries in many countries Source? Their own website only lists 3 use cases, and only one is used for mail delivery, and even that is in Kolkata only.
  • 1y ago
• ericdiao 1y ago
  The ZIP code system in the US CAN somewhat work the same way. The usual 5 digit ZIP code routes to your Post Office. The longer ZIP+4 code routes more detailed locations: a city block, an apartment building. The even longer ZIP+6 code goes to something called delivery point, which to my understanding is basically a single mailbox. The ZIP+6 code is in fact embedded in the bar code sprayed onto the mail piece.
  • smw 1y ago
    Though you might have missed the concept that it follows you if you move, I think?
    • d-us-vb 1y ago
      he said "somewhat work the same way". For a person who doesn't care about whether they have to get a new code when they move, the systems are equivalent in their value proposition. Thus is the case for most things that "somewhat work the same way".
    • chipsa 1y ago
      If there was a zip code that was just virtual PO Boxes, it could use the existing change of address machinery to slap the actual delivery address on when addressed with a virtual box. Assuming they used an entire sectional center facility for it, you could have 100 zip codes, with 6 digits of unique delivery points, so 100 million virtual boxes.
• politelemon 1y ago
  > Their digital addresses will not change even if their physical addresses change. This doesn't sound good for privacy or security, though it's a nice convenience function.
  • Marsymars 1y ago
    This idea is so close to being great though. It just needs a couple changes: > Under the system, users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites. 1. The site shouldn’t get your address at all. They print the code on the package, mail it to Japan Post, and Japan Post takes care of delivering it to you. 2. You should be able to generate new codes arbitrarily. i.e. A service like Apple’s Hide My Email, but for physical mail.
    • BurningFrog 1y ago
      It would be pretty trivial to mark some addresses as private. So only the delivery service can resolve it. My guess is that's already planned, but they don't put all details in the first press release.
    • maxgashkov 1y ago
      Japan Post represents only a portion of shipping providers in Japan, for our idea to work others will need the same privileged access to the system: Yamato, Sagawa etc. This will also require to alter the package label on the last mile because requiring the courier to scan every package or letter before they could even see an apartment number will slow things down to a crawl.
      • klausa 1y ago
        The relabeling to show the actual address is something that carriers are already doing for C2C marketplaces and their anonymous shipping features already.
  • bluehex 1y ago
    The "important notes" section on the Japanese page[1] says that you can disable / delete an address at any time and create a new one. If I used this I would rotate every so often and at a minimum for each move. I'm a bit concerned for people that don't understand the risks of updating these. Anyone that's ever seen this code being able to lookup the person's address across moves is scary. I don't feel like this convenience warrants the risk of having this feature, personally. It's already convenient enough to just limit the input required for updating third parties to an alphanumeric code without allowing updating the addresses. [1]: https://lp.da.pf.japanpost.jp/#importantnotes https://lp.da.pf.japanpost.jp/#importantnotes
• brynet 1y ago
  > Their [virtual] addresses will not change even if their physical addresses change. So they've added an MMU (Mail Management Unit).
  • salynchnew 1y ago
    An address addressing system.
• comrade1234 1y ago
  I thought this was something else... my cousin has been living in Japan 10+ years in a small town for on the other side of Mt Fuji from Tokyo and I went and stayed with him for a couple of weeks. Every day (maybe twice? I can't remember) loudspeakers on poles around the neighborhood would start playing amateurish announcements - some very old man half-asleep reading a list of events, news, etc. I was hoping they turned it digital and just sent it to your phone. For how peaceful things normally were in this town it was disruptive.
  • xdfgh1112 1y ago
    In Okinawa I get music in the morning when kids need to go to school as well as random announcements. Japan has always been weird like that - people are generally quiet and respectful of others, but when it comes to trucks driving around blaring out political speeches, or a "pay to take your large trash" van playing music while driving around to advertise its presence, all bets are off.
  • numpad0 1y ago
    That thing is an air raid siren. It's broadcast from city or town offices, and everyone believes it's for disaster mitigation. Sure, but they run complete human in loop system readiness tests each day every day. You don't need that level of assured reliability for those community announcements.
  • mc3301 1y ago
    Those can be anything from daily announcements telling kids to get home before dark, testing the emergency announcement system, reminding people about today's festival, or asking people to be on the look-out for 89-year-old Takahashi-san who was last seen at the vegetable stand earlier this morning.
  • Tor3 1y ago
    Where I am there's now only some music at 17:00, ideally that should announce that it's time to leave work and go home, ffs.. but as this is Japan, it doesn't seem to serve a purpose - people don't go home. That music used to be a siren until a few years ago. I like the melody better. We do get the aforementioned trucks driving around all day announcing loudly that they'll take your trash, for payment.. but it's very rare now. And the pole sellers seem to have disappeared entirely. I could use a new pole though.. for drying clothes. There has fortunately never been any political speech trucks around here. The town is too small I assume.
• Gothmog69 1y ago
  I've always wanted this
• constantcrying 1y ago
  Very cool. The German Post already has "digital stamps", you buy them online and then you just have to write a couple of symbols on the envelope. If you combined these together you would get a letter which can be fully paid for and addressed by writing a couple of symbols on it, only meaningful to the computer system. In a way this is making the physical world quite digital.
  • chipsa 1y ago
    You can buy digital stamps for the USPS as well. You need to accurately put a barcode on the envelope though.
    • constantcrying 1y ago
      The point of the digital Stamps is that you just need a pen and write a couple of letters and symbols.
• nivertech 1y ago
  Reminded me of a dot-com era colleague who left to start a startup that would notify your friends when your email address changed ;) But this thing sounds like a Rube Goldberg machine. A much simpler solution is to have the subscriber log into their account and change their address
• OJFord 1y ago
  I wonder how it works if you have two addresses. (I suppose one possible answer could be that it just doesn't, you register your main one, if you want the other you have to enter it in full.)
  • kazinator 1y ago
    It seems obvious to me that you would just register a digital address for each of those two addresses.
• kazinator 1y ago
  This is a nice solution for a good chunk snail mail spam. The next step would be to refuse to route mail other than to a digital address. Next step, allow users to have short-lived, throwaway digital addresses which are nest to worthless to harvesters, who have mere weeks to act on them. The post office should conceal the real addresses, not allowing outsiders access to the database. You shouldn't have to tell someone where you live in order to receive something by mail from them.
  • tantalor 1y ago
    Nice idea but (according to the article) that's not how it works: > Under the system, users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites. So the sites still use the physical address. In fact, the postal service itself doesn't even use the code. The purpose is to simplify form input on websites, which was already solved by browser autocomplete.
    • Tor3 1y ago
      Browser autocomplete works Really Badly for Japanese addresses (no standardized way of inputting addresses, including which font to use), so it should solve one major problem in Japan. That's different from e.g. my home country. Or almost anywhere else, for that matter.
      • tantalor 1y ago
        TIL, I didn't know the situation was particularly bad in Japan. I suppose the 'digital address' is solving the problem by effectively standardizing the input format.
  • xenadu02 1y ago
    Well Japan's physical address system everywhere except Kyoto is complete insanity. Every level get assigned numbers based on build order so block 6 can be across town from block 7 for no apparent reason. Feel free to have any addressing system you like; it need not be number, street, city, state/province like many western countries. But it should at least make some logical sense.
• KoolKat23 1y ago
  https://www.eircode.ie/ https://www.eircode.ie/ This is Ireland's postal code system. There's a small level of privacy built in, specific to an address (many taxi drivers ask for this) and 7 digits long. Web forms use it too, so quite common in normal life. Surprisingly the postal service, An Post, don't use the postal code as their primary way to direct mail (as far as I understand) .
  • thephyber 1y ago
    When you say “web forms use it”, is it built into browsers natively, or Irish-based websites add those fields? Addresses are one of those things that “what programmers frequently get wrong about X”.
    • KoolKat23 1y ago
      Irish-based websites add those fields. https://www.eircode.ie/business/business-overview https://www.eircode.ie/business/business-overview
  • Arnavion 1y ago
    See also this CGP Grey video where he talks about post codes / zip codes in general and mentions Ireland's system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K5oDtVAYzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K5oDtVAYzk
    • simplesimon890 1y ago
      He's mostly, but not fully correct when talking about the randomness. The first 3 characters match the Dublin postal districts. People living in Dublin 12 start with D12. On one hand, maybe that's useful but on the other hand, it's a way for people to potentially discriminate based on the "good/bad" areas of the city.
      • coredog64 1y ago
        If I have to give you D12 as my postal district anyhow, what is the new mechanism for discrimination?
• PerilousD 1y ago
  So I HOPE you cant mis-type an email address and get it sent to someone else. I get so many bank account statements, library book and device rental notices, car is ready for pickup, or from repair etc notices. ALL APPARENTLY from Bozos who dont know their OWN email addresses. On the other hand on the 2nd notice *I usually do not get a third) when I tell garages/ car impounds / parking spaces to sell the damn thing as Im done with it.
  • shitpostbot 1y ago
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• deleted 1y ago
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• slipperybeluga 1y ago
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• richardw 1y ago
  Almost perfect. Along with mail that follows you, I’ve always wanted a system that lets you grant the right to send you mail, that you can hard revoke. Physical and digital. We could call it “slightly more complex mail protocol”. No more layers of filters, just grant and revoke.
• soorya3 1y ago
  If we could use use gps co-ordinate then it would make all the life simpler. Imagine how many time you type those address info on the forms and not to forget typing mistakes.
  • xxpor 1y ago
    How do you account for apartment buildings? Include your elevation? :)
  • crubier 1y ago
    I don't know, I feel like "38.57266, -9.19670" is harder to remember than "55 bridge street, foobar city, mexico". Maybe What3Words would be better: "///obscure.loftily.tasting", but it does not give any idea on locality.
    • eightys3v3n 1y ago
      We could use Google Plus codes instead. They look like 3W4J+622 Calgary, Alberta. The digits after the + can be added or removed to increase of decrease accuracy. They can but need not be also be replaced partially with a locality like Calgary, Alberta.
  • 9dev 1y ago
    Why not an email address that you can add a physical address to on the platform of your national postal service? Have parcels be sent to the email address, and the postal service resolves that at dispatch time to your current address. No hassle when moving, no spreading your address everywhere, easy to remember.
    • AStonesThrow 1y ago
      The USPS is currently delivering some mailpieces electronically. When I sign in to Informed Delivery, every month or so the USPS sends a postcard advertising their podcast (“Mailin’ It!”) https://usps-mailin-it.simplecast.com/ https://usps-mailin-it.simplecast.com/ This is a virtual postcard, so while I can read it in my email or on usps.com, I won’t necessarily find a paper copy delivered. It is my understanding that commercial mailings can also use this mechanism. I receive some marketing as original JPEG quality, rather than being scanned in grayscale.
• numpad0 1y ago
  It's more of a URL shortener. Users are assigned 7-digit alphanumeric code that macroexpands into full address on participating websites as well as on some paper application processes. There are few safety checks to prevent abuses, and linked address can be changed later when you move. Many online address forms in Japan uses equivalent of ZIP code to do similar already, but the expanded address are as granular as ZIP codes - I always fill in the rest of the address, but if I think about it, the fractions of users who do religiously verify and clarify the addresses must be less than 100%. I suppose this code will initially solve that problem with minimal infra changes for both users and the PO.
  • freetime2 1y ago
    Entering building names can be a bit of a pain. I'm not even sure if it's required - according to Wikipedia it looks like you can just keep adding dashes until you eventually get to room number (e.g. 4-5-10-103) [1]. But a lot of address forms ask for it, so I end up entering it anyway. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system
    • TheDong 1y ago
      The building name is required in many cases because two buildings next to each other will often have the same ban-chi-go (i.e. 4-5-10 could refer to two apartment buildings that were originally on the same lot, both with room 103). It's exceedingly common, not just some edge-case you see every once in a while.
  • lmz 1y ago
    But if it follows the person unchanged when they move then it's effectively a person addressing system / a synthetic ID for a person.
    • voidUpdate 1y ago
      I think its more of an ID for a household
  • 1y ago
• henry_bone 1y ago
  I had this idea years ago when I was moving house and redirecting my post. I'm probably not alone in that. Kudos to Japan Post for implementing it.
  • SwtCyber 1y ago
    Now let's see who outside Japan actually picks it up next. Feels like a good fit for places with high renter populations
• karaterobot 1y ago
  > Japan Post plans to spend about a decade to promote broad adoption of the new system. The actual feature doesn't seem mind-blowingly useful to me, in the era where most of my form fields get populated for me automatically anyway. Doesn't seem bad, just I don't see it being a life changing thing. I'd hope it does not work as a way for the Post to learn a little bit about my shopping habits. Probably not. Who knows. But what I think is cool is a ten-year commitment to any computer-based system, which is sadly rare to see these days.
  • wesleychen 1y ago
    It's very useful if you change addresses often.
  • freetime2 1y ago
    I've had some bad experiences with form autocompletion in the past which resulted in orders being delayed (this would have been a few years ago with 1Password specifically), so I always enter address and payment info manually. I assume plenty of people use autocompletion all the time without issue, and will tell me I'm wrong, but that's just my preference. So memorizing a 7-digit code to enter address information without error seems like a useful feature to me (though admittedly not mind-blowingly so). It could also be useful in other contexts such as sharing an address with someone verbally, over LINE, manually entering an address into a GPS, etc. Assuming the system actually catches on and the codes are universally supported in map apps.
  • lucyjojo 1y ago
    if the servers keep the number and not the rendered address, it would save you ungodly amount of times when you move... (you have to go to the city office, register stuff, can take a few hours, then to the police to change your car license, then bank accounts, takes time too, etc. it's a pain)
  • Tor3 1y ago
    As some other comments mentioned, the way addresses are entered in web forms in Japan is not standardized. So autofill just doesn't work, a lot of the time. It may even seem correct, but then this particular site wants the address to be written differently.. half-width vs full-width characters, for example (and it can be way more complicated than that). It's so complicated to even enter your name that my Japanese wife couldn't get it right on a hotel's web form, whatever she tried. With her Japanese PC. Had to book by phone, in the end (and, as we weren't in Japan at the time, that was a costly phone call)
• JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  The wild thing is we could easily do this with a zip + 4 + 2, given each zip + 4 shouldn't route to more than two dozen addresses [1]. (Or 8 alphanumeric digits.) [1] https://www.smarty.com/articles/zip-4-code https://www.smarty.com/articles/zip-4-code
  • Tor3 1y ago
    That's true, and it would be much easier to remember, but then you lose the feature where you move to somewhere else but you still use the same code - which is also a function of this system (you just update your address once, in that public database). And everyone who already have your digital id will automatically get your new delivery address, unlike if they just have your zip+4+2.
• andy_ppp 1y ago
  Is this partially because Japan has no street names making specific addresses less clear than in most countries?
  • Tor3 1y ago
    It's more because entering addresses on web forms can be a major problem in Japan, there's no system to it. You have to use the correct font (half-width, full-width), and sometimes you have to write it twice, and sometimes with different characters, and much more. And the other thing this system does is that the same code will work when you move somewhere else, as long as you re-register your address. Once. The missing street address used to be a big problem. The postal delivery people had (and still have, of course) a way to look up your address - which is really just the property number, in the area where I live) and find it on a map. Normal people couldn't. But now we can enter the property number into e.g. google maps, and it'll find the actual location. Which, of course, means that you need to be online with your digital device. Which I wouldn't be until recently (I've got this pocket wifi now), unless I was in a wifi area. In my home country I can easily find any location just by someone telling me the street name and number. No map needed, no online presence.. my home address has a property id, known by the city, and a street address, for everybody else. Japan is like that, just that the street address is missing..
• HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  > People can obtain digital addresses by registering with Japan Post's Yu ID membership service. Their digital addresses will not change even if their physical addresses change. OK, so your social security number is your "digital address", and the post office has a database of everyone's current address. I'm not sure what problem this solves. Shaves seconds off the time it takes you to write an address? Better hope they've got error correction built in, since normal addresses are fairly "fault tolerant" in terms of still being deliverable. If you move you still need to notify them, although perhaps in Japan big brother already knows you've moved.
  • waiwai933 1y ago
    But now you only need to notify the post office, rather than every company who sends you physical mail.
  • evidencetamper 1y ago
    > If you move you still need to notify them, although perhaps in Japan big brother already knows you've moved. When we move, we need to register our address change at the city hall. In terms of Big Brother, that's a given. The problem is that we also need to change all bank, bills, etc. too. So this replaces the need for mail forwarding, for example.
  • growlNark 1y ago
    > Shaves seconds off the time it takes you to write an address? Presumably it'd be pretty nice if you lost touch with someone.
    • HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
      Also pretty convenient for sending harassing mail to people who'd rather you didn't.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • kalleboo 1y ago
• rester324 1y ago
  Without knowing anything about the technical details, this sounds like a new type of URN to me
• Aziell 1y ago
  I actually really like this idea. It’s genuinely convenient. The worst part of moving is updating your address everywhere, and even after doing it, you still worry something got missed. But after reading the details, I’m a bit hesitant. The idea of the code staying the same even if the address changes sounds great. But if it still relies on people manually updating their info, isn’t it pretty easy for things to go wrong if someone forgets?
  • sarreph 1y ago
    > isn’t it pretty easy for things to go wrong if someone forgets? What do you imagine going wrong? In my mind, if I had a digital address code, one of the first things I would do after moving would be to update it. Plus, the article alludes to functionality that displays (+ confirms) the physical address anyway…
    • Aziell 1y ago
      Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe I'm just overthinking it. It's just that when people get busy, even the simplest things can slip through. If the system had some kind of reminder or could sync automatically, that would make it perfect.
      • lurking_swe 1y ago
        then your mail will be sent to the wrong place. just like if you forgot to update your default shipping address on amazon, after moving, for example. the government can’t save you from being forgetful. :) But it CAN make the process easier. This looks great and as an american i’m jealous! A single place to update my address would be amazing.
  • davchana 1y ago
    Since years I have yearned that USPS lets you rent a PO Box. Maybe divide the country in 5 to 10 parts, and allocate a special zip code for these. The po box is nothing but just a forwarding address. You as a user control its final destination in usps.com account. It is like a link shortener. Somebody sends a letter to that address. Regular mail system forwards it to machines. There, machines stick a yellow or some color strip on it with its actual destination, then it comes to you. You could move and simply update usps.com address.
• itpcc 1y ago
  Thailand have also tried to do Digital ID[0] thing since 2022[1]. Yet, we still have to do it in an traditional way anyway since its service is so limited. Ref: [0] https://www.thailandpost.co.th/un/article_detail/article/11/33196 https://www.thailandpost.co.th/un/article_detail/article/11/... [1] https://workpointtoday.com/digital-post-id/ https://workpointtoday.com/digital-post-id/
• presentation 1y ago
  On the actual site for these digital addresses [1], they mention some risks and countermeasures - translated: > Risks and Countermeasures When Using the Service > 1. Obtaining a Digital Address involves the following risks. Please use the service after understanding them. > a. If a third party learns your Digital Address, they may be able to determine the corresponding address. > b. Randomly entering a Digital Address may display the corresponding address. > 2. Our company anticipates the above risks and has prepared the following mechanisms as countermeasures. > a. Digital addresses can be deleted immediately, and the linkage between addresses and digital addresses can be disabled. Note that even if deleted once, a new digital address can be reacquired. > b. The system has mechanisms to detect and prevent abnormal searches, such as a large number of searches in a short period of time. > c. Even in the unlikely event of a personal information leak, our system is designed with leakage risks in mind to prevent personal identification. Digital address data is managed in a separate database from personal information such as email addresses and phone numbers, as shown below. 1a. is the primary concern for me, and while I can disassociate my identity from a digital address, that would defeat the purpose of using digital addresses to e.g. handle the case when moving. Sounds like they don't have a real answer to this security issue besides just accepting it. [1] https://lp.da.pf.japanpost.jp https://lp.da.pf.japanpost.jp
  • fvrther 1y ago
    I just tried it and if you suspect it leaked you can delete it immediately and get a new one in 10mn
    • presentation 1y ago
      Yeah, but if a major point of convenience is that the underlying address can be changed without changing your digital address code, then that's lost every time you cycle it. Without that then this is an extremely minor convenience IMO.
  • presentation 1y ago
    If it were me, I would design it more this way after thinking about it a bit: 1. Japan Post lets you register your address to your Japan Post Account. 2. No static short code is created for your address. 3. Japan Post provides an API (like OAuth) for allowing you to persistently share your address location with a third party, say Rakuten, or Kuroneko Takkyubin, or something. 4. Once you've linked it to those services, they can use this API to get your address at any point in time. 5. You can unlink services whenever you want to revoke access, without changing any code. 6. No way to request an address for a Japan Post account without permission granted. 7. To handle cases like taxis, Japan Post can work with providers like GO Taxi, S.Ride, DiDi, etc. to do an authenticated one-time address share via NFC using the Japan Post App with the digital consoles already present in almost all taxis in major cities (no help for old taxis in the inaka, but that's a tradeoff). a. or alternatively, persistently link your GO Taxi, S.Ride, etc. accounts to Japan Post for the same purpose. b. and also potentially allowing to do such a key exchange with NFCs on smartphones or a standalone device, but probably taxi operators wouldn't be motivated enough to actually do that. That way you just need to trust Japan Post and you can still get a decent amount of the convenience of address sharing.
• gregjw 1y ago
  As someone who recently moved to Japan, I'm so happy this is a thing. Their addressing system is a little painful.
  • presentation 1y ago
    As someone who has lived in Japan for the better part of a decade, I am not as excited; at some point I just got used to it and can't recall feeling any pain from it for many years at this point. There are other things that are much more painful than this.
• fvrther 1y ago
  Hello, I live in Japan, the thing they don't tell in the article is the Japan Post Digital Address can be tied to the MyNumber system. It's an official ID card you're required to update by law every time you move, and they plan to link the address of both systems. Meaning every time you update you address on your ID it will automatically propagate everywhere. In Japan the MyNumber system is live since a few years and a single card can already be used: * As driving license * As a unified heath insurance card * As a unified way to retrieve prescribed medications, lab results, vaccinations.. * For doing the taxes and receive pension * As a foreigner residence card (very soon) * For digital signing of official papers (as a way to replace the Hanko stamp culture, it's working but not yet widely used) The digital ministry is also expected to unveil an Apple Wallet integration in a few months to avoid having to carry the card.
  • whydoineedthis 1y ago
    So, like, a public ss# tied to an address.
    • fvrther 1y ago
      Exactly, but I'm not familiar with the American SS# system honestly
      • ensignavenger 1y ago
        Its just a number assigned to every American person usually at birth nowadays. It is assigned the the Social Security Administration. It was designed as a Social Security account number, but is also used as a Tax Identification Number by the IRS. And a lot of places treat it like it is some super secret password, but it is just a number, and it is a number that everyone wants, and everyone and their dog- including multiple government agencies- has made publicly available, so now everyone and their dog and their dogs cousins dog has access to them, so it makes absolutely no sense why anyone would treat them as secret.
  • RaoulP 1y ago
    Thanks for the context!
• mcoliver 1y ago
  Call me crazy but I want this for my digital profile. Let me register and login to apps and websites with an id that is a pointer to my profile where I can update my emails, phones, addresses, profile photo, website, etc.. of course the question is who is the owner of that service. Self host, block chain, public company, non profit, government. Tradeoffs with all of them.
• chmod775 1y ago
  > Under the system, users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites. Why not just let people mail to that code, and the post office then looks up the actual address? That'd also avoid any issues with leaking personal information.
  • brody_hamer 1y ago
    Easier to roll out this way would be my guess? With your approach, the burden is on the post office to update their handling process. With the implemented approach, nothing changes about the postal process, and the burden of work is shifted to the sender, who must look up the code for the recipient’s current address.
  • xyst 1y ago
    Imagine inputting: "IiIIil" but meant to input "IiIIi1" Oops now my package is going to Joe Blow on the other side of the country. That’s probably why.
    • saulpw 1y ago
      25^7 is 6 billion, and there are fewer than 200m people in Japan. That's enough for one character to essentially be error correction.
      • voxelghost 1y ago
        25^6=244,140,625 - I think I have seen estimates of 100,000,000 addressable entities in the Japan postal address system (a bit half of them being households, the rest companies,public buildings, various organizations and so on )
        • saulpw 1y ago
          TFA says "seven-digit combinations of numbers and letters".
• xyst 1y ago
  What does this solve? Are Japanese addresses that complex? Does the population of Japan move around quite frequently thus the need for some static identifier? I don’t see any particular upside at this point. It suffers from "weak enumeration" and possibly make stalking much easier. (( sure govt will try to limit queries but there are many ways around it. Govt will spend millions over the next few years playing cat and mouse while ))
• slackr 1y ago
  Addresses in the Netherlands (much smaller country, I know) all work like this out of the box. People write their return addresses on envelopes that way too, like: 1234AB,56 (where 1234AB is a postal code for up to 15 or so addresses, and 56 is the house number)
  • dingaling 1y ago
    I once tested the UK system like that by sending an envelope to myself with just house number and postcode. It worked perfectly, yet convention remains to laboriously write redundant information every time.
    • shepherdjerred 1y ago
      The Irish are even better: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/donegal-postman-delivers-letter-to-your-man-with-the-glasses-1.2289890 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/donegal-p...
    • culi 1y ago
      the redundancy improves reliability. Ink runs, mail gets wet, some small degree ambiguity will likely always exist, etc
    • Hamuko 1y ago
      Recipient name, Street address + number, Postcode doesn't sound that laborously redundant, unless your conventions have something more. Gives a larger area where the mail should go, a precise area where your mail should go (that you can compare to the larger area for mismatches) and who should be able to open the mail.
    • Digit-Al 1y ago
      Well bully for you. For those of us who live in flats it's not so simple. If you were to put e.g. flat 8 and my postcode there are about 4 or 5 choices so you're probably not going to get your mail.
  • eloisant 1y ago
• ggm 1y ago
  Australian postcodes cover thousands. British Postcodes can be unique to a household. Japanese postal addresses can be very unlike western addresses. The major unit chome then a sub, then sometimes an offset from a landmark or "street behind" I've had late night taxi drives from stations have to check in at a Lawson to find the doorway. Edinburgh has its own notation for which door on a stairwell which sometimes (if the gods will it) aligns to postal registry and council and utility billing. When it doesn't things get complicated. Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen all have their own variants of this stairwell door identifying notation as I understand it. Dutch addresses putting the number after the street name can confuse people.
  • pepa65 1y ago
    Number after the streetname seems to be a more general European thing.
  • Macha 1y ago
    > Dutch addresses putting the number after the street name can confuse people. This one causes me problems _all the time_. My address is like: 12 XYZ Lane, XYZ Road, Town Name Postcode 12 XYZ Road, Town Name is also an address that exists, and is in the same vicinity as me so will get routed to the same delivery driver, but is not my address. So often enough, when continental European companies insist on a structured address, they will then render it back out as some variation of: XYZ Lane 12 XYZ Road Town Name Postcode And the delivery driver just looks for the number as the start of the address, presumably because they're used to scanning past recipient names and business names, and instead delivers my package to 12 XYZ Road.
• PaulRobinson 1y ago
  This is a good start. I have a registered code, I can update it whenever I move house, online ordering becomes easier, great. As people have indicated in thread already, the current implementation is easy: a website frontend just needs to be able to resolve it to the physical address. I think there is value though in carriers saying "no, wait, I'll do the lookup when I am ready to deliver!", because then I order something today with a 3-month lead time and if I move house, the delivery "follows me" to my new location. Going further, I might want to specify my home address as the default, but for items under 2kg delivered 8am to 5pm on weekdays, please deliver to my place of business. If I'm in hospital for a prolonged stay, I may want to redirect to a friend or family member. I actually expect some of the rapid delivery networks to get a bit more like this - I predicted with friends about 5 years ago at some point your Amazon delivery is going to be in a locker on the back of a self-driving vehicle. You (and everyone else in the street), will get a notification that its outside for the next 30 minutes - miss it, and it'll go get delivered to a nearby pickup site. Imagine if there was dynamic routing so that the parcel just "finds me" if I'm at work, or a bar after work... obviously I might want choices and options and so on, but I think the idea of parcels just going to where you sleep, whether you are there or not, is going to look quaint in 30 years time. [edit: there's also a nice bit of privacy going on here the later the lookup happens - if nobody at the e-commerce site knows where I actually live, that information can't be leaked]
  • luis_cho 1y ago
    For me the privacy part of site not knowing we’re I live would be great. I could also black list entities from delivering spam.
    • hbarka 1y ago
      My mailbox is full of junk mail and it’s hard to make them stop. It’s not even addressed to me, just the mailbox location. The design pattern to “unsubscribe” or block the junk sender is also useless. Surely there must be a strong political lobby in the US who don’t want to prevent junk mail. It’s so wasteful and ridiculous (literally tons of paper) and I’ve resigned to this fact of life in my country.
• lyall 1y ago
  Good opportunity to repost this gem: "Parsing the Infamous Japanese Postal CSV" https://www.dampfkraft.com/posuto.html https://www.dampfkraft.com/posuto.html HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25023673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25023673
• maaaaattttt 1y ago
  Lately I this idea for email. It would work like a twitter handle for the user but similarly to domains and dns under the hood. Then you just use this handle to register and receive email communication. If you change email provider or get locked out for some reason you can just update the email the handle points to.
  • pineaux 1y ago
    I actually think they missed a chance here. They could have made the code in such a way that it anonymizes the receiver. Only japan post would know where this person lives.
    • maaaaattttt 1y ago
      I believe so too. The API they provide doesn’t need to respond with the exact address until an approved carrier makes an identified request. The availability of that API needs to be perfect though!
  • Ringz 1y ago
    I do this since a long time. I don’t use my real email postbox address. I just use email addresses from my own domain server „catch all“ to the real email postbox. If I ever change my email provider I just have to change the catch all rule.
• ktzar 1y ago
  funnily something similar exists in the UK since the post-WWII postcode change. Addresses can be "minimised" to 10 characters, or less. Obviously there's no way to change the real destination once something has been sent https://vlad.website/most-minimal-uk-address/ https://vlad.website/most-minimal-uk-address/
• jimmySixDOF 1y ago
  IBAN for home addresses. Yawn. Nothing beats the What Three Words system and would be much more fun if not routeable at scale. https://what3words.com/ https://what3words.com/
  • lqet 1y ago
    7 digits can be written much faster than 3 words, and (most) digits are free of any unintended association. Also, the 7 digits may contain the house number. You cannot reliably use what3words for a delivery address, because the house on the square may have several house numbers. I also don't like the commercialism behind what3words.
• robertlagrant 1y ago
  I've been wondering about something like this for years. Good idea. Why does everyone I order from have my address?
• tr33house 1y ago
  When I was in college, I'd come up with a similar concept for creating addresses for the developing world. For those that don't know, most of the world actually doesn't have any address and the governments have no plans in place to solve this. Basically have a third party DNS like company and all it would do would be digital addressing. Since we would also deliver the mail, there was the added benefit of not sharing your actual address, temporarily sharing it, having alternatives based on day, kind etc and potentially just sharing your phone number as your address etc etc Looking back, this would've been a great company but one that almost no investor would fund
  • postexitus 1y ago
    Completely different benefit proposal, but doesn't what3words kind of do this?
    • GJim 1y ago
      Giving your lat and long solves this, without recourse to proprietary systems, similar sounding words or requiring a proficiency in the English language. What 3 words is pants.
      • postexitus 1y ago
        The problem with lat/long at this resolution is -> Too many numbers. Get one wrong and you are somewhere else. what3words identifies the correct problem, provides a solution, but I agree that it has its flaws. I wish some independent org can come up with a better standard that addresses those.
  • 1718627440 1y ago
    I have never understood this. You build a house somewhere, develop your existence, etc.. Surely you have a way of telling others where you live? Simply give your place a name, if there are multiple buildings there, give them numbers, et voila you have an address. Why isn't this what is happening? Isn't this what happened everywhere where there are addresses? We don't have street names and numbers, because a central number authority chose to assign them, we have them because humans give things names in order to refer to them. So whenever someone is claiming that there are people living without an address, I find that incomprehensible.
• SwtCyber 1y ago
  This actually sounds like a pretty clever middle ground between privacy and convenience. Curious to see how well it's received in Japan
• mickey475778 1y ago
  [dead]
  • SwtCyber 1y ago
    Hopefully there's some rate limiting or verification built in. Still, as a privacy baseline, this feels like a major upgrade.
    • sphericalkat 1y ago
      I just created mine 5 minutes ago, and they mentioned that they do have rate limiting built in.
  • rkangel 1y ago
    This article doesn't sound like it's got any privacy improvements? "...users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites" I was assuming the site was just doing a lookup against the code to get the address. They might still need the address, e.g. if they then need to charge different shipping based on location.
  • pityJuke 1y ago
    I’d read the rest of this person’s comments - looks like a LLM bot.
    • specialp 1y ago
      The other comments are all very clear LLM replies. They didn't even strip the emdashes.
• mickey475778 1y ago
  [dead]
• Nullabillity 1y ago
  This reminds me a lot of Sweden's SPAR.[0] Everyone has a personal ID number, the ministry of tax (Skatteverket) maintains a database of everyone's contact information (name, address, etc; Folkbokföringen), which "anyone" can query at a trivial price.[1] A decent amount of stores do, though certainly not all. [0]: https://www.statenspersonadressregister.se/master/start/english-summary/ https://www.statenspersonadressregister.se/master/start/engl... [1]: https://www.statenspersonadressregister.se/master/start/vaara-tjaenster/priser/prislista/ https://www.statenspersonadressregister.se/master/start/vaar...
• WhyNotHugo 1y ago
  Sounds interesting, although quite confusing. Then again, I find most thing Japanese confusing, so that’s likely cultural bias. I’m curious to hear how this develops and what we can learn from this experiment. > Their digital addresses will not change even if their physical addresses change. This is really weird. What happens when two roommates move to different addresses and a third stays behind?
  • boredemployee 1y ago
    I think as with everything digital, you need to keep your information updated
  • jjice 1y ago
    My thought was that this is per person (I could very well be wrong) and each would have their own digital address, having all of them point to the same place initially and then the two could update when they move and the roommate staying behind would leave theirs.
• mofosyne 1y ago
  Hopefully it has at least a checksum
• donatj 1y ago
  I was really hopeful this would do something to address Japans convoluted address system, anything really, sort of like Open Location Code is trying but with the backing of the post office. If you don't know the storied history of an area in Japan it can be nearly impossible to find an address manually. You give someone your address in Japan, they have to either use the internet or ask people in the area to help you find it. Most are not based on streets, they are based on smaller and smaller named subdivisions of a given area. Alas no, this is the exact opposite of Open Location Code and requires an internet connection to look up. We should be working on something that allows you to find an address on foot without an internet connection! Japanese addresses are a problem this makes no attempt to fix. Just baffling to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system
• vishnugupta 1y ago
  Any problem in computer science can be solved by having one more level of redirection. Seems like it’s applicable to some of physical world problems as well.
• ajb 1y ago
  I always wondered whether you could do this just by pointing a URL at a page with your address and printing the URL on the envelope. I suspect it would work with royal mail in the UK although with a delay (and they may get annoyed if too many people did it). TBH I think that would be better than a centralised DB.
• otagekki 1y ago
  This could actually be extremely convenient to use in many parts of Africa where place simply do not have addresses. Right now what we do is latitude longitude, which works wonders but can a bit clunky especially in cities