Diet begins discussing bills on personal information

The House of Representative plenary session on April 8 began discussing a set of government bills "aimed at protecting personal information" and a counterproposal jointly submitted by the four opposition parties.

The government submitted these bills as a redrafted version of earlier bills. Its first attempt was thwarted in the previous Diet session because the original bills contained provisions to restrict the freedom of the press.

Lower House member Haruna Naoaki spoke on behalf of the Japanese Communist Party against the government proposal, saying that it enables the government to interfere with press reports, as it allows the minister in charge to decide, even arbitrarily, whether the piece of information serves "press purposes or not".

Haruna criticized the government bills also for lacking provisions to regulate gathering such sensitive information as ideology, creed, and clinical history, and not providing penalties against abuses of such sensitive information.

Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro insisted that the minister-in-charge's decision "won't be arbitrary", and that there is no "categorizing" sensitive information, suggesting that he saw no need to control against abuse.

JCP Yoshii Hidekatsu explained the four-opposition-party counterproposal. The opposition bill calls for an independent organization to be set up to supervise matters concerning personal information, establishes the right of individuals to control information related to themselves, and provides penalties against abuses of personal information.

Yoshii stressed, "The general principle is that no public power should be allowed to meddle in the freedom of the press and individual privacy. An impartial and neutral third party organization needs to exist, independent from administrative authorities." (end)