TEPCO Employee Improperly Shared Confidential N-Plant Documents

Tokyo, Feb. 25 (Jiji Press)–A Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. employee shared confidential documents on a nuclear power plant within the company improperly, according to a Nuclear Regulation Authority report. This adds to a series of problems with TEPCO’s handling of sensitive information related to antiterrorism measures at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan. The NRA’s investigation report, released Tuesday, found that the employee photographed confidential documents with a smartphone without permission and emailed a summary of the contents to 16 colleagues in February 2025. No leakage outside the company has been confirmed. Also on Tuesday, the NRA issued a provisional evaluation rating the incident at the second-lowest on its four-level safety significance scale. The authority plans to conduct additional inspections after making the assessment official. The incident will not affect the scheduled start of commercial operations at the No. 6 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant on March 18. According to the NRA, the employee in question was responsible for handling confidential information, including that concerning the nuclear plant. Since November 2020, the employee had removed classified documents related to antiterrorism measures and other materials from storage without following the required procedures, repeatedly copied them and kept them at the employee’s desk. In November 2023, the same individual saved a copy of other confidential materials in a shared internal computer folder. The employee told TEPCO that the actions were intended to accurately respond to inquiries from the NRA. The NRA began related inspections after receiving reports from TEPCO in June and October 2025. Due to a series of flaws in its antiterrorism measures, TEPCO was effectively banned from operating the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant from April 2021 to December 2023. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]