Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2015 December 2 - 8 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Citizens file lawsuits over unconstitutionality of ‘My Number’ system

Filing lawsuits against the state with five district courts across Japan on December 1, 156 lawyers and citizens claimed that the so-called “My Number” system entails a great risk of a personal data breach, which violates people’s constitutional right to privacy.

The plaintiffs in the documents submitted to the five courts demanded that the government prohibit their ID numbers from being collected, stored, used, and provided by other organs; delete their numbers; and pay 110,000 yen per plaintiff in compensation.

The filing was made at five district courts in Sendai, Niigata, Tokyo, Kanazawa, and Osaka. This is the first legal battle seeking an injunction order against the start of a full-fledged operation of the “My Number” social security and tax identity system in January 2016. Similar lawsuits will also be filed with the Yokohama, Nagoya, and Fukuoka district courts.

In Tokyo, 30 people, including medical doctors and LGBT activists, joined the lawsuit.

At a press conference held after the filing, Okuyama Taeko, one of the 30 plaintiffs, said, “We now have to put a stop to the ‘My Number’ system. If we fail, we will see a society where all personal data such as medical and job histories are monitored by the state authorities through the use of the 12-digit ID numbers.”

Representing the plaintiffs’ counsel, lawyer Mizunaga Seiji said, “The ‘My Number’ system is designed to deal with nearly 130 million people’s personal data. Such a system should be suspended and revised before its potential for negative effects will become a social problem.”

Meanwhile on the same day, a self-employed man who is also a plaintiff in the Niigata lawsuit, said, “This new ID system will only impose responsibility for severe data protection on smaller business owners while bringing no advantage to us.”

Past related articles:
> ‘My Number’ system too dangerous for full-scale operation [November 7, 2015]
> JCP: expansion of use of ‘My Number’ system will invite risk of serious privacy breaches [September 4, 2015]
> Concerns over ‘My Number’ system increasing among SMEs [May 6, 2015]