Tokyo, April 7 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese government is set to introduce fines on businesses that repeatedly commit serious violations of personal information rules under a relevant law. The government on Tuesday adopted a bill revising the personal information protection law to introduce the penalty and submitted it to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, or parliament, on Tuesday. The bill also includes measures to promote the use of personal data for artificial intelligence development. Specifically, it calls for easing restrictions on the use of such information only for the purpose of compiling statistics. Under the current law, businesses that stop their violations after receiving recommendations or orders from the Personal Information Protection Commission can retain their ill-gotten profits. The bill seeks to impose fines equivalent to such profits if businesses repeatedly acquire or use personal information improperly. The government hopes the move will have a deterrent effect by making clear that businesses could be slapped with economic penalties. The fines will be levied only for large-scale violations, such as cases involving the sale of personal information of more than 1,000 people for profits or leading to human rights breaches, reflecting concerns among the business sphere that the penalty may discourage data use. Businesses seeking to acquire sensitive personal information about children aged under 16, such as their medical history and race, will be obliged to obtain the consent of their guardians including parents or legal representatives to prevent them from suffering disadvantage. This system is modeled on similar rules in foreign countries. The bill is also designed to promote the use of data for AI development, making it unnecessary to obtain consent from individuals for the acquisition of their sensitive information as well as the transfer of their personal data to third parties solely for the creation of statistics. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
Japan to Fine Repeat Personal Info Rule Violators
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