MIC’s Efforts in the field of ICT for foreigners

Presentation material for the Kansai Consular Form

March 27, 2017

SEKI Keiichiro Director General

Kinki Bureau of Telecommunications Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications （MIC）

Survey：Development Bank of Japan Inc., Japan Travel Bureau Foundation Respondent to the survey: South Korea・China・Taiwan・Hong Kong・Thailand・ Singapore・Malaysia・Indonesia

Source : Development Bank of Japan Inc.

179 232 317

501 610 917

1,126

1,415

1,969 2,315

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500万 (in 10,000s)

関西国際空港からの入国者数（年）

入国者数（全体・年）

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

foreign nationals entering Japan

Increasing number of foreign nationals entering Japan

Foreign Tourists Needs

Make foreigners’ stay in Japan more comfortable and safe

Development of Wireless environment （Wi-Fi） for connecting anywhere easily. Improvement of various services which utilizes ICT to remove the language barrier. Reliable way to provide information in disaster to all foreigners, etc.

ICT is an indispensable tool for foreigners.

Increased need for ICT

MIC promotes the development of ICT environment for foreigners by conducting “Information Refugee ZERO Project”.

Source : Ministry of Justice

(in 10,000s)

Kansai International Airport (Year) foreign nationals entering Japan (Total, Year)

Kansai International Airport

Internet access

・Traditional Japanese inns ・Renting private homes and rooms

Accommodations

・Reservation website

Reservations

・Improvement of the telecommunication environment (the internet , Wi-Fi etc.) ・ Language support (English, National language support) ・Accessibility to the tourist spot ・Experience of Japanese cultural activities

Facilities

1

Efforts toward providing information smoothly to all foreigners in disaster

Airport・Port

Terminal facilities such as stations

Public transportation

Walk Tourist information office

Accommodation facility

Evacuation shelter

Workplace and School

When entering and leaving Japan

While traveling in Japan When staying and acting

At the time of disaster

Incomprehensible situation due to information of disaster and evacuation in Japanese language only.

Sightseeing, Commercial and

Sports facility

It’s difficult to call emergency service

and communicate with rescue crew in English or National language

It is difficult to understand Japanese customs at an

evacuation shelter.

Enabling to receive disaster information visually and in many languages！

Current situation

The ideal situation in 2020

＜Airport・Terminal facilities, Sightseeing・Commercial・Sports facilities＞ Enabling to get visualized disaster information such as maps and pictogram (character information) in multiple languages, through smartphone applications, digital signage, etc. ！

＜At the time of disaster＞

Enabling to get information service by

“Information coordinator（tentative）” at

evacuation shelters！ Shelter Information

coordinator

May I help you?

Digital signage

Smartphone applications

♪

♪

ABC・・・

【Development of means for providing information, evacuation support and emergency transport】

When staying home

Disaster

information in multiple languages

is insufficiently provided .

House

Emergency transport

An example of the ideal situation in 2020

＜Emergency transport＞ Enabling to receive first aid service securely by realizing of simultaneous interpretation of three-way-calling and 119 emergency calls nationwide！ Interpreting

telephone center

Communication commander

Foreign informer

Three-way-calling ♪

Information Refugee ZERO Project

Source : MIC

Transmission of disaster

information in multiple

language is insufficiently

provided .

2

Development of information transmission on the assumption of diverse conditions where disaster information is required

MIC summarized current issues on means of providing information under various conditions for foreigners and the ideal situation in 2020 from a user perspective.

MIC drew up an action plan for practical use in society in 2020.

＜Scenes where disaster information is required.＞ → Organizing 18 scenes.

〔１〕Foreign tourists

〔２〕Foreign residents of Japan

When entering and leaving Japan

①Airport・Port

When staying in facilities

⑤Tourism Information office ⑥Tourism, Commercial, Sports facility ⑦Accommodation facility

At the time of disaster

⑧Evacuation shelter ⑨Emergency transportation

While traveling in Japan

②Terminal facility ③Walk（downtown, street） ④Public transportation （Bus, Railway, Ship）

At the time of disaster

⑰Evacuation shelter ⑱Emergency transportation

While moving outside

⑪Walk（downtown, street） ⑫Public transportation （Bus, Railway, Ship, etc.） ⑬Terminal facility as a station

When staying home

⑩house

Comfortable staying in normal time Ensuring safety after a disaster occurred

When acting outside

⑭School ⑮Workplace ⑯Tourism, Commercial, Sports facility

Source : MIC 3

◇A scene in an airport when entering and leaving Japan

Current issue Goal ○ Transmission of disaster information in multiple languages is not sufficient, except emergency earthquake warning through smartphone applications and radio broadcasting in English and other few languages,.

○Enabling to get visualized information on disaster and e v a c u a t i o n s u c h a s maps and pictogram (character information) in multiple languages, through smartphone applications, digital signage, etc.

◇A scene of emergency transportation in case of a disaster

Current issue Goal ○119 emergency calls and rescue crews can’t provide the services in multiple language sufficiently, depending on Fire district HQs and rescue crews in each area.

○Deploying a framework of simultaneous interpretation with three-way-calling and enabling to respond to 119 emergency calls from foreigners and first-aid activity smoothly at a disaster sites.

◇A scene of evacuation shelter in case of a disaster

Current issue Goal ○ Foreigners who can’t understand Japanese and Japanese customs well has a possibility of falling into information refugees in evacuation shelters.

○Deploying an environment to support foreign victims by “Information coordinator”（ tentative ） who can understand Japanese and their native language at evacuation shelters. Information coordinator support for foreign victims, accurately transmit disaster information, grasp various needs from foreign victims and provide them to local government staves.

＜The ideal situation in 2020 while foreigners are staying in Japan＞

Source : MIC 4

Deployment of Wi-Fi Environment in Disaster Management Sites

MIC has established a basic policy on simplification and unification of procedures to start using the free Wi-Fi. MIC has also developed common technical specification.

Operation of common authentication application “KANSAI Free Wi-Fi (Official)” has started since October in 2016. Currently, it is available at around 10,000 access points.

Connection image

Screen image of common

authentication application

＜Planned number of Wi-Fi enabled sites in Kinki region ＞ ＜Wi-Fi development by prefecture in the Kinki region ＞

Around 2,000 sites

Planning

Around 1,600 sites

already developed

Total 3,600 places （The results of a survey on

local public entities）

Around 1800 sites

Around 200 sites

①Disaster management sites Schools, Citizen centers and Community

center designated as Evacuation shelter. Public offices

②Public bases assumed as an affected area Museums, Cultural assets, Parks, Visitor

centers etc.

Breakdown of development schedule

199

227

373

284

331

173

258

343

355

426

80

512

457

570

728

710

411

685

0 200 400 600 800

Wakayama

Nara

Hyogo

Osaka

Kyoto

Shiga

already developedplanning

MIC drew up a plan for development of Wi-Fi environment contributing to disaster preparedness for the next three years from fiscal 2017 through 2019.

Numerical target for access points in the Kinki region be set around 2000 places, which serve as disaster management sites of local government activities including public bases assumed as a disaster area.（Around 16,000 sites in all Japan.）

Simplification of Authentication procedure

Wi-Fi development in Disaster Management Sites

5

R & D of Multilingual Speech Translation Technology Available to Smartphones

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), a national research and development (R & D) agency under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) took initiative and developed a multilingual speech translation system in pursuit of the realization of communication beyond language barriers. Presently, the utilization of VoiceTra, a multilingual speech translation application, is expanding.

Presently

Supporting 31 languages. The translation of travel

conversation between 10 languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean, is possible on a practical level (a TOEIC 600-point level in terms of English). (Artificial intelligence (AI) is used for speech recognition and translation.)

Smartphone application “VoiceTra”

2020 After R & D, followed by large-scale verification, VoiceTra will be put into practical use in society by 2020, when the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held. -> Nationwide expansion

Making the translation of conversations other than travel conversations possible, such as those required for medical scenes.

Expanding the number of translatable languages on a practical level.

Supporting a variety of expressions, noise removal, automatic learning and other functions through R&D.

Efforts toward performance improvements.

VoiceTraSupport page:http://voicetra.nict.go.jp/

Download QR code

Airport

Sport events NariTra, a translation application dedicated to Narita Airport. (Technical transfer from NICT)

Utilized by Keihin Electric Railway on a trial basis for transfer and lost property guidance.

Introduced by Tokyo Metro to all 170 stations under its management.

Utilized by the Okayama Prefectural Police for geographic information, lost property reporting, etc.

Police

Utilized by first-aid stations and volunteers for Tokyo Marathon 2015 and 2016.

Railroad

Shopping

Railroad

Medical service

Sightseeing

Taxi

Guidance

Support in the street (e.g., by volunteers)

Medical treatment

Multi-language call center

Tablet terminal (rear seat) Conversation support through on-vehicle display

Car navigation system

6

Language support of VoiceTra Supported Language

・Translation between 31 languages（＊） , Speech input of 20 languages and Speech output of 16 languages

Function

Middle Eastern

languages

Germanic, Romance and

Slavic languages

Asian languages

language Input Output

Speech Text Speech Text

Japanese ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Chinese ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Korean ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Urdu ✔ ✔

Sinhala ✔ ✔

Turkish ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Nepali ✔ ✔ ✔

Hindi ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Mongolian ✔ ✔ ✔

Indonesian ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Khmer ✔ ✔

Thai ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Filipino ✔ ✔

Vietnamese ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Malay ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Myanmar ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Lao ✔ ✔

Taiwanese Mandarin

✔ ✔

Arabic ✔ ✔

English ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Italian ✔ ✔

Dutch ✔ ✔ ✔

Spanish ✔ ✔

Danish ✔ ✔

German ✔ ✔ ✔

Hungarian ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

French ✔ ✔ ✔

Polish ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Portuguese ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Brazilian Portuguese

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Russian ✔ ✔ ✔

（＊）Includes dialects of Chinese and Portuguese

Input

Output

Confirmation

7