ムラタ キヨシ   Kiyoshi Murata
  村田 潔
   所属   明治大学  商学部
   職種   専任教授
言語種別 英語
発行・発表の年月 2012/06
形態種別 国際会議議事録
査読 査読あり
標題 Atheoretical Legal Policy for Privacy Protection in Japan
執筆形態 共著(筆頭者以外)
掲載誌名 Online Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Information Law and Ethics 2012
掲載区分国外
著者・共著者 Yohko Orito and Kiyoshi Murata
概要 There is just less effective privacy protection law in Japan. The Act for Protection of Personal Information (APPI), which was put into effect in April 2005 as the basic law for personal information protection covering both the public and private sectors, was crafted centred on protection of personally identifiable information (PII) collected, stored and used by organisations, and the makers of the law deliberately precluded the elements of privacy protection beyond PII protection on the ground that the concept of privacy was elusive. Actually, APPI is not endorsed by careful theoretical considerations of the social importance of privacy protection but superficially follows the OECD's (1980) eight principles and EU's (1995) Directive 95/46/EC. This law is characterised more as regulation for organisations' personal data handling than as law for protecting the right to privacy.
Since soon after its enforcement, various problems of APPI have been pointed out. Moreover, in the current circumstance where the widespread use of social media enhances individual users' revelation of personal information of themselves and others and the integrated reformation of taxation and social security systems based on the development and operation of citizen numbering systems is being engaged in by the central government, the limited effectiveness of APPI for privacy protection is highlighted. Nevertheless, the law makers who are involved in revising APPI seem still hesitate to incorporate the proper theoretical understanding of the social significance of privacy protection into the revised law. This study discusses an appropriate legal policy for privacy protection suitable to the current socio-technological environment in Japan.
(the paper is available online at http://conferences.ionio.gr/icil2012/download.php?f=papers/054-murata-full_text-en-v002.pdf)