Kiyoshi Murata    Department   Undergraduate School  , School of Commerce    Position   Professor
Date	2016/12/13
Presentation Theme	Japanese Data Sensitivity: A Preliminary Study
Conference	The Asian Privacy Scholars Network 5th International Conference
Promoters	Asian Privacy Scholars Network
Conference Type	International
Presentation Type	Speech (General)
Contribution Type	Collaborative
Venue	The University of Auckland
Publisher and common publisher	Kiyoshi Murata, Andrew A. Adams, Yasunori Fukuta, Yohko Orito and Ana Maria Lara Palma
Details	A revision to Japan's Act on Protection of Personal Information (APPI; Act No. 57 of 2003) was passed in September 2015. This act generally moved further in authorising the economic exploitation of personal information, rather than improving privacy protection. However, the revised act does include some restrictions on business operators' handling of sensitive personal data. The third paragraph of Article 2 of the revised act defines sensitive data not just via a list (such as the EU laws have) but more broadly as personal data with which extra care must be taken to avoid unjust discrimination, prejudice or other detriment against a data subject giving a non-exhaustive list including race, creed, social status, medical records, criminal records and damage suffered by crimes. However, data sensitivity is a new concept for ordinary Japanese people, and thus it may be hard for them to understand what types of personal data will be granted these extra protections. In addition, attitudes toward sensitivity of personal data may vary between different cultures. As part of cross-cultural exploration of the interpretation by ordinary people of data sensitivity between several countries including Japan, Spain and Sweden, the authors have administered a survey to Japanese people about their attitudes toward sensitivity of personal data. In addition to illuminating the general issue of sensitivity of personal data, this study is intended to provide policy recommendations for effective implementation of the new Japanese legislation.