On 24 March 2021, the Japanese government released the effective dates of substantial amendments to the Japanese Act on the Protection of Personal Information ("APPI") that had been announced in June 2020, requiring companies to take additional measures to protect personal data of data subjects. We have prepared two webinars to provide you with the relevant background on the APPI and its legal concepts as well as the upcoming amendments.
The amended APPI was enacted on 5 June 2020 and promulgated on 12 June 2020. The revised Act (Act No. 57 of 2003 as amended in 2015) will fully come into effect on 1 April 2022 however, parts of the amendments are effective earlier:
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Effective 1 October 2021, use of the "opt-out" exception for data subjects’ consent will be restricted (e.g. the revised version of the APPI limits the cases where data handlers can use an "opt-out provision" for transfers to third-parties);
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in effect since 12 December 2020 are the amended provisions that raised penalties to fines of up to 100,000,000 JPY (about USD 1 million) in case of violation of an order from the authority or illegitimate use of data.
Other key provisions of the amended APPI that will be effective from April 2022 include the concept of “Pseudonymously Processed Information”, provisions on mandatory breach reporting, “personal-related information” and extraterritorial applicability. The latter grant the Personal Information Protection Commission (“PPC”) authority to request foreign entities which supply goods or services in Japan and handle personal information of individuals in Japan to submit reports or to issue orders in case of violations of the APPI, which can be enforced with a penalty.
Is your business ready for the changes? Please watch our webinars for more information.
Next steps
To view the webinar recording, please see below. For details of the amended APPI, please refer to our recently published article here. We continue to monitor the guidelines on the APPI to be issued by the PPC.
Webinar recording
Authored by Hiroto Imai, Mizue Kakiuchi, and Eva-Marie Koenig.
