April 2016 to March 2017

Authors/Persons in charge:
Izumi Harada (Chief Feloow, Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies)
Yusuke Koizumi (Chief Fellow, Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies)

 The progress has been made lately to formulate laws and regulations for the cross-borders transfer of personal data. There are already such laws formulated as Revised Private Information Protection Law in Japan, General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR）in EU, and Cross Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) in APEC area. It is, however, to be noted that the transfer of personal data from EU to Japan is still regulated and that an increased number of countries are adopting data localization policies or initiatives as Russia or China to control the free transfer of personal data across borders. Under these circumstances we have to prepare ourselves for the situation that the free cross-border transfer of personal information and IoT data will be blocked and controlled by laws and regulations although such cross-borders transfer of data is essential for Japanese industry to promote the data related business.

 In Japan there is increasing expectation that the advanced technology of camera image and facial recognition is widely used to support 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games, but the arguments are provoked against the new way of using these camera images and facial recognition technology from the point of protecting personal information and privacy. Actually in some cases the use of such technology has been forced to be cancelled or left pending. Such cases are, for example, the project implemented by National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) to make experiment of camera images and facial recognition in the area of Osaka Station City which was suddenly postponed, and the trouble where video surveillance and facial recognition is in operation against shoplifters at the large book shop which are suspended. Both cases needed more careful consideration to deal with personal image or data. These incidents are wielding influence for many potential vendors and users to hesitate to use these advanced image and facial recognition technology.

 In our research and study we covered the trend and tendency both domestic and abroad how IoT Data is utilized and will possibly be utilized, and how the privacy or personal information is protected and will be protected through literature search and field survey. For the study we travelled to USA to make field case study of commercial and practical uses of facial recognition technology and to investigate the trend in USA how laws and regulations are being prepared, and based on the results of these study we offered our proposal in public on behalf of the industry concerned.

We actually disseminated the findings and results of our research and study in seminars and in the media articles.

 In the second part of our research and study we travelled to Caribbean countries of Republic of Cuba and Dominica and made field survey of such topics as resident registration system, National ID system and digitalization status and plan, their view for public safety system in parallel with the guidance on their political situation, history and social issues. The results of this field survey were disseminated to the internal staff concerned and to the public in relevant seminars.