A New Era for Japanese Data Protection: 2020 Amendments to the APPI

Authors: Takeshige Sugimoto, Akihiro Kawashima, Tobyn Aaron from S&K Brussels LPC; Authors can be contacted at [email protected] .

The recent amendments to Japan’s data protection law (the Act on the Protection of Personal Information, henceforth the ‘APPI‘) contain a number of new provisions certain to alter – and for many foreign businesses, transform – the ways in which companies conduct business in or with Japan. In addition to greatly expanding data subject rights, most notably, the amendments to the APPI (the ‘2020 Amendments‘): 

(ii) considerably heighten companies’ disclosure and due diligence obligations with respect to overseas data transfers; 

(iii) introduce previously unregulated categories of personal information (each with corresponding obligations for companies), including ‘pseudonymously processed information’ and ‘personally referable information’; and 

The 2020 Amendments will be enforced by the Personal Information Protection Commission of Japan (the “PPC”), pursuant to forthcoming PPC guidelines alongside the amended Enforcement Rules for the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (the ‘amended PPC Rules‘) and the amended Cabinet Order to Enforce the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (the ‘amended Cabinet Order‘) (both published on March 24, 2021).

Leave a Comment