New system would prevent non-residents from buying certain items from Pokémon Center Online.

Scalping is becoming an increasingly big problem for the Pokémon franchise in Japan, and we’ve been seeing increasingly inventive attempts to counter resellers’ attempts to snatch up in-demand items and flip them for profit, such as stores making shoppers pass a Pokémon quiz before they can make a purchase or taking scissors to the packaging afterwards. Now the Pokémon Company itself is considering possibly the strictest measure yet: requiring would-be Pokémon card buyers to show a government-issued ID card before buying packs.

While Pokémon is an even bigger deal in its home country than in the many other nations around the world where it’s phenomenally popular, this wouldn’t be a card issued by the Japanese government specifically for Poké-purchases. In a statement posted to the official Pokémon Trading Card Game website on Thursday, the company says that it is looking into requiring buyers to confirm their identity via their My Number Card. Introduced in 2016, the My Number Card is an ID card that includes the bearer’s name, address, date of birth and photo, along with a 12-digit unique personal identification number.

As of 2021, My Number Cards also include an embedded IC chip, and it’s this technological feature that the Pokémon Company wants to apply to the purchase of Pokémon cards via the Pokémon Center Online, the Pokémon franchise’s official online store. Under the system, would-be buyers would use a third-party service to read their My Number Card’s IC chip and confirm their identify, after which they would be authorized to make the applicable purchases.

▼ A My Number Card interfacing with a smartphone

The Pokémon Company isn’t planning to make My Number Card verification a requirement for any and all online purchases, but the announcement says it would be applied to “the purchase and lottery registration for certain items,” most likely referring to new releases and high-demand items (which are often offered through a lottery system in which purchase rights are randomly awarded if demand is expected to be much greater than supply).

Ostensibly, this system would allow the Pokémon Company to more easily identify scalpers who are buying in bulk and block them from making further purchases. However, there are other groups which would also be shut out from making purchases by a My Number requirement, starting with people who aren’t Japanese residents. My Number Cards are only issued to Japanese citizens and foreign residents of Japan, so tourists or overseas shoppers would be out of luck. This might actually be an intended effect of the system, though, as there’s a perception in Japan that foreign resellers make up a sizable portion of the scalper demographic.

Non-residents wouldn’t be the only ones affected by this system, though. Japanese citizens/residents aren’t legally required to have a My Number Card, and need to file application paperwork in order to obtain one. As such, there’s a portion of the Japanese population that doesn’t have a My Number Card yet, and simply uses other forms of ID, such as a driver’s license, insurance card, or foreign resident card, instead. My Number Cards also aren’t normally issued to children under 15 (though that probably won’t make a difference for buying things from the Pokémon Center Online, since kids that young won’t have their own credit card either).

The Pokémon Company says it’s also planning to make My Number Card identification verification a requirement for registration for certain official Pokémon Card Game tournaments in Japan. This seems like it could present a problem for younger competitors, but it’s likely that official registration requires a parent or guardian’s consent, and so the adult’s My Number Card would be used as a proxy form of identification.

The Pokémon Company’s announcement says that the goal of the My Number system would be to “ensure fair opportunities and safe, secure service to all customers,” and while the Pokémon Card Game website says that they are “looking into the introduction” of the system, the Pokémon Company’s official Twitter account is firmer in its declaration that they “are planning to introduce” a My Number Card requirement. The system is projected to be in place as early as August, and with application processing time sometimes taking up to two months, passionate fans will need to get their paperwork started soon.

Source: Pokémon Trading Card Game official website, Pokémon Company official Twitter account via Kinisoku
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