The e-Document Law went into effect in Japan in April 2005. The law permits companies to electronically store the documents that they are legally required to retain—financial documents, tax documents, accounting records, and so on. While hardcopy paper documentation is costly to store and vulnerable to loss from fire and other hazards, digital data is far less costly to store and risk of loss or damage can be dispersed by storing multiple backup copies of the data in different locations.
