Planetway Corporation (Headquarters: San Jose, CA, Representative: Nori Hirao, hereinafter Planetway) and Seiko Solutions Corporation

Planetway Corporation Seiko Solutions Co., Ltd.

Seiko Solutions Co., Ltd. (President: Atsushi Sekine, head office: Chiba City, Chiba, hereafter Seiko Solutions Corporation) announced today that they plan to provide their timestamping service for use in concert with Planetway’s PlanetCross technology to enable safe and secure transmission of sensitive personal information between financial and medical institutions, an approach based on Estonia’s e-government data collaboration infrastructure, X-Road.

Through collaboration between the two companies, information cooperation in medical and financial fields, which conventionally requires expensive dedicated systems, can be realized with low cost and high scalability. Both companies will begin providing solutions to the hospital / insurance / healthcare field from September 2018, areas where data collaboration services are required to enable users to perform various tasks on a one-stop basis.

1. Background

In recent years, procedures at medical, financial and administrative agencies have become available through services such as the Internet that utilize IT. On the other hand, because of security and cost problems, shared use of personal information (sensitive information) owned by each institution is still not possible, and the user receives information from each agency for each procedure separately, by application. There is still a lot of room for improvement around the fractured nature of these online services which are repetitive for users. The government actively promotes shared use of data through the Myna Portal initiative*. and the Next Generation Medical Infrastructure Act** introduced in May this year.

*Myna Portal: Online service operated by the government. Personal portal site tied to my number. **Next Generation Medical Infrastructure Act: For which the official name is "law concerning anonymous processing of medical information to contribute to research and development in the field of medicine", is a law governing the collection and utilization of large volumes of data of various kinds, including results from networked medical facilities, forming the basis for realizing next-generation medical research, medical systems and medical administration processes.

2. Collaboration Overview

i. Description PlanetCross provided by Planetway is a service based on "X-Road", a data collaboration infrastructure harnessing advanced security technology employed in Estonia’s national ID number system. Seiko Solutions works with domestic authentication infrastructure such as timestamping and electronic certificates. We have already confirmed that it is possible to simplify and speed up the damage insurance payment business with medical institutions in the demonstration experiment with Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. Based on these achievements, in addition to medical, we will also seek to develop personal information data linkage solutions for financial and administrative agencies.

ii. Business development It is estimated that the number of certificate documents issued in the payment of property insurance and life insurance in Japan number more than tens of millions of annually, and operating costs are expected to reach hundreds of billions of yen*.

Insurance companies are considering improving work efficiency through IT. Making electronic contracts on loans and sending electronic certificates of deductions to name but two. Using PlanetCross enables low-cost and high-security system cooperation between the same industry and different industries, making it possible to promote the sharing of services and ultimately make them one-stop. The partnership will then involve the development of solutions for the finance and insurance industries to further increase user convenience.

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the Government aims to establish a system that can share data on healthcare, medical checkups, medical history, medications, nursing care etc. by FY 2020. The use of personal information sharing with PlanetCross with its advanced security, is useful for informing appropriate medical treatment as stipulated by health authorities and for reducing medical expenses. *Reference material: Life Insurance Trends (2017 Edition) issued by the Japan Insurance Association, General Outline of Car Insurance 2017 issued by the Life Insurance Premiums Calculation Organization, and Overview of Fire Insurance and Earthquake Insurance in 2017.

About Timestamps and Cloud Signing Services

Timestamps The timestamp service provides proof of existence and proof of non-tampering of data by granting accurate and reliable third-party certified times associated with it. Seiko Solutions offers a timestamping service which is approved by Japan Data Communications Association.

Cloud Signing Services A cloud signature service manages electronic certificates and private keys in the cloud, in this case guaranteeing the validity of electronic contracts as a substitute for a physical seal or stamp usually used by people in Japan for important transactions. The advanced security infrastructure that combines hardware security module (HSM) and timestamp ensures the reliability of data based on international standards.

What is PlanetCross? PlanetCross is an information-based infrastructure independent of industry that Planetway customizes and provides for the private sector for the first time in the world for the information linkage foundation of Estonia Republic of developed countries of electronic administration. Since it is possible to realize data linkage with other companies without making major changes to the existing systems and databases of each company, it is possible to gradually expand the application area while taking advantage of existing systems and databases. Although it corresponds to the cooperation of various relational databases as an initial stage, it is effective especially in utilizing it in a highly confidential area such as personal information and privacy information.

Features

1. Customized, 17 years-proven infrastructure of Estonia’s e-government for the private sector
2. Simultaneously prevents falsification, and ensures integrity and traceability of data
3. Constructing a large scale decentralized database network
4. Unlimited scalability due to a multi-protocol that supports a wide range of platforms
5. Beyond API

About Planetway Planetway is a startup that develops a data access platform, PlanetCross, which is based on technology supporting the Estonian e-government. Planetway believes that “the right to information and privacy should belong to individuals, not enterprises and organizations.” Our mission is for a “Human-centric and Secure Planet.” We promote the publication and utilization of personal data, on the condition that permission is granted by the individual.

*Company names, product names, etc. described in the text are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.