Japan Press Weekly

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2015 August 26 - September 1 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Pension data leakage reports fall short of easing public distrust

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

An in-house probe committee of the Japan Pension Service and a third-party panel of the Welfare Ministry recently released their reports regarding the issue of hacking into JPS computers that led to the leakage of 1.25 million cases of personal data. The reports criticized the JPS and the ministry for lacking awareness of the risk and failing to take sufficient security measures, but kept away from discussing the underlying cause of this issue which is the closure and privatization of the Social Insurance Agency (SIA), the predecessor of the JPS. These reports fell short of removing people’s anxiety over and distrust of the sloppy management of the pension system.

Even after detecting the fact that the JPS computer system was infected with malware through the opening of virus-infected emails, the JPS and the welfare ministry were unable to handle the situation, leading to the spread of the malware infection. Although the JPS in principle prohibited its workers from handling personal data on computers which are connected to the Internet, this principle was ignored which was a major cause of spreading the infection.

Criticizing this situation, the two reports stated that the JPS and the ministry lack a collective sense of responsibility for playing a key role in the public pension system and that the ministry’s supervising system was insufficient.

Meanwhile, the reports stopped short of noting any negative outcomes of the establishment of the JPS in 2010 following the dissolution and privatization of the governmental organization SIA. As reasons for the massive leakage of personal data, it is cited that the abrupt dismissals of many skilled public workers in the privatization process and the replacement of regular workers doing critical jobs with non-regular workers have brought about many problems in addition to a staff shortage in the JPS. It was also revealed that as the JPS outsourced various jobs, personal information about public pensions has been put at risk of security breaches. Without examining and analyzing the leakage issue in a broader context, it is impossible to prevent a recurrence.

The closure and privatization of the SIA was carried out in 2007 by the first Abe administration. The responsibility of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and Welfare Minister Shiozaki Yasuhisa who promoted the privatization as the Chief Cabinet Secretary at that time should again be called into question.

Past related articles:
> Pension data entry staff are outsourced workers [June 4, 2015]
> Leak of personal information about public pensions overturns basis of ‘My Number’ system [June 2, 2015]