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Information privacy proposed for Japanese constitution
By Martyn Williams

An influential Japanese politician has suggested including the right to information privacy as part of a proposed revision to the country's constitution.

"(My proposal) calls for the collection of such information, the storage, utilization and transfer of such information to require consent or a valid rationale by law for specific circumstances, otherwise such activities would be banned," said Yukio Hatoyama, a member of Japan's lower house of parliament, the House of Representatives, and ex-leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

Hatoyama was speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan this week to outline his suggestions for a revised constitution, which are contained in a book he published on the subject last week. His comments come amid growing public interest in Japan about the amount of personal information held by government agencies and companies.

People should have the right to know what information about them has been gathered and how it is being used, and should be able to ask for amendments to information they think is incorrect, he said.

Japanese citizens tend to be less concerned than those in Western countries about the collection of personal information by the authorities. Many provide details voluntarily about their households to the local koban, or neighborhood police office, and few raise questions about requests for identifying documents from private companies. However, things are slowly starting to change.

A recent run of highly publicized information leaks from major companies -- some of which resulted in the names, addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of millions of people being leaked -- have caused unease in Japan. Some of the information found its way into the hands of fraudsters and was used to scam people out of large sums of money.

Changes in some laws are underway, although Hatoyama's suggestion of enshrining such a right in the constitution would take the proposed laws a step further.

Japan's current constitution came into effect on May 3, 1947, and was drawn up at a time when the country was under the control of Allied military forces in the wake of its defeat in World War II. With the 60th anniversary of the document approaching, a general shift in political power in East Asia, and the involvement of Japan's Self Defense Forces overseas in places such as Iraq, a debate is beginning about changes or a wholesale rewriting of the constitution.

Posted February 11, 2005 05:02 PM | TrackBack (0)