Wrong Handling of My Number Data by Govt Increase in FY ’17

June 12, 2018

Tokyo- Inappropriate handling of My Number tax and social security common numbers by the Japanese government and other entities increased in fiscal 2017, a report by a group showed Tuesday.

The Personal Information Protection Commission, the supervisory group set up by the government, recognized 374 such cases in the year that ended in March, up from 165 in the previous year.

Public and private entities wrongly discarded My Number data and made them accessible to unintended parties, said the fiscal 2017 report by the commission, which was adopted at a cabinet meeting.

In the year, Japan started sending residential tax notifications on which the common numbers are written. This led to the increase in the inappropriate handling of My Number data, because some notifications were sent to people other than intended recipients by mistake, the report said.

Of the total cases, local governments were involved in 270 cases, central government entities in 11 cases and private businesses in 93 cases.

The total included five serious cases--one involving a local government and four involving private entities. Among the five were cases in which information on more than 100 people was compromised.

The commission said it has not received any report that My Number data compromised through inappropriate handling have been misused.

Japan saw a total of 3,338 cases of problems affecting personal data at private businesses, including leaks, between May 30, 2017, when the revised personal information protection law entered into force, and March 31, 2018.

Under the revised law, authorities to supervise personal information management by private entities were concentrated at the commission. The report is the first one since the move. Jiji Press