list of contributors - GALA

JAPAN
Wilfred Wakely
Aiba & Partners
wakely@aiba.chuo.tokyo.jp
1. Topic The New Japanese Privacy Law
Where: Japan
When: April 1, 2005
What Happened: As of April 1, 2005, all businesses with databases containing “personal
information” in Japan, must comply with the Law Concerning the Protection
of Personal Information (herein “PIPA”).
The law has its antecedents in both the recognition of “privacy” as a legal
right and earlier laws about the protection of privacy. However, those laws
were aimed primarily at local and national government institutions, such
protection has been extended to the private sector, and now, businesses
meeting a certain threshold must abide by certain obligations when
collecting and disseminating “personal information”.
Personal Information consists of that information which identifies a
particular living individual. Consequently, PIPA applies to that information
- such as names, addresses, telephone numbers - which can identify a
particular person.
PIPA provides a rather large number of duties for businesses to follow.
Foremost among these duties is that businesses must publicly announce and
provide in advance to the individual the purpose for obtaining an
individual’s personal information and how such personal information will be
used. Further, the business must go about obtaining the personal
information in a fair and non-fraudulent manner.
Businesses are also obliged, depending on the type of business, to install and
maintain a number of internal regulations and procedures to insure the
accuracy of the information, prevent accidental “leakage” of such
information, and respond to individual’s requests pertaining to their
personal information.
Persons from whom personal information is obtained possess a certain
amount of rights with regard to the information. These include the right of
disclosure what information is held by a business, the right to correct
erroneous information, and the right to request that the business cease all use
of such information.
An additional important feature to the law is that an individual’s consent is
now required when a business wishes to disclose personal information to a
third party. However, PIPA contains an “opt-out” feature which allows
businesses to share information with other companies where the individual
is informed beforehand that his or her personal information will be shared
with specified companies, for a specified purpose, and further informing the
individual what information will be shared, how such information is
collected, and the individual’s right to request that such provision cease.