Will the 2000-year-old Japanese tradition of Hanko seals go digital?
I recently got the opportunity to work on a redesign project for a paperless office solutions software company called eMudhra. Because of their global presence, I got to speak to few of their clients from UAE, India, Africa, South America and Indonesia. Covid-19 pushed a lot of bureaucratic offices to adopt digital signatures and eventually learn to trust and love the efficiency in digitizing the process.
Digital signatures not only help reduce errors and the time taken for a document to be passed from one hand to another, it also reduces stationery cost, paper waste and in turn reduces the organization’s carbon footprint. Another win for the environment!
Digital signature laws vary between countries. In the US and Europe, eSignatures are legally valid while other countries like India or Singapore require a digital signature certificate that can be obtained with valid identity proof along with entering a one time password (OTP) during every use of the digital signature. This made me wonder, how are the Japanese digitizing their hanko seals?
The Beautiful Kafkaesque Hanko Seals of Japan
Hanko is a personal stamp to verify your identity in Japan. They were introduced to Japan 2000 years ago by the Chinese and their use was limited to the noble class. After the modernization of Japan in the 1870s, they became a requirement for every citizen. Each individual has three types of hanko seals; Mitome-in, Ginko-in, and Jitsu-in.
Mitome-in is cheap and used for common daily activities like paying bills, signing basic contracts, workplace check-ins, etc.
Ginko-in is more official and is used for bank-related signatures.
Jitsu-in is the most important and powerful hanko seal. Each of them is unique in design and must be registered with the government. It is used for important transactions like buying a house or your marriage certificate. Most often parents create Jitsu-ins for their children when they come of age and secure them in vaults.
Why is such an ancient system of verification still prevalent in Japan?
When I think about having to carry multiple hankos and having to be physically present to sign every document in my life, I can’t help but think about all the time lost in this process. The Tohoku University, in Japan, estimates that moving away from hanko will save the university around 80,000 working hours a year!
In business, the Japanese follow the process of ‘nemawashi’ where all important stakeholders on the corporate totem pole has to be consulted before a decision is made. A single document can have many hanko stamps on it with the location, size of the seal and orientation indicating the rank of the person. There is even a way to indicate if someone has reluctantly agreed to a decision by orienting their hanko further by a wider angle to the rest.
Hanko seals embody the trust and mutual respect involved in a business transaction.
Hanko seals were living a happy life until…
Covid-19 hit the world and forced Japanese government and businesses to consider people’s safety first. Commuting and meeting in-person just to sign a document was not worth the risk of spreading the infection and so Japanese government quickly amped up their efforts to digitize the documentation process. To leave hanko behind, although, was to question the very fabric of Japanese society. Will the Hanko seals still have an important place in Japan? Can technology preserve this tradition without having to completely uproot it?
Product lessons from Hanko seals
- Even if you have been a successful product for 2000 years, user needs can change overnight and failing to adapt to them can put you at risk of being obsolete.
- This goes against everything I preach as a UX Researcher but sometimes it’s necessary to ignore user emotions around a product/feature. If there is enough proof that it is necessary to replace existing norms to help the product and its users in the bigger picture (like the infamous removal of the iPhone jack.) then it’s better to let it go at the right time.
- We can be caught up in our biases to realize the inefficiencies in our processes that seem to “get the job done.” Adopting digital signatures has improved Japan’s digital trade relations with UK, reduced their carbon footprint and time spent on documentation. Why did it then take a global pandemic for them to make the shift?
Personally, I love the idea of having a special seal for important transactions. It makes you appreciate the moment, when you’re taking out your unique seal to celebrate milestone transactions your life. Utility bills, though? I’ll pass.
Hi! Thanks for reading my article and making it all the way to the end! What are your thoughts on what should be done with Hanko seals now? Let me know in the comments.
