Japan PM Stresses Privacy Protection in Intelligence Bill Debate

Tokyo, May 8 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Friday emphasized the importance of privacy protection during parliamentary discussions on a government bill to set up a national intelligence council aimed at enhancing the country's intelligence capabilities.

On medium- to long-term strategies for the government's intelligence activities, Takaichi told a plenary meeting of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, "We will consider measures to ensure that the government does not collect or provide information in ways that unnecessarily infringe on personal data or privacy."

The bill, which last month cleared the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, entered deliberations in the Upper House, with the prime minister attending the plenary meeting in which the bill's purpose was explained and a question-and-answer session was held.

Takaichi also said that the bill would neither create new investigative powers to make it easier to collect information from people nor expand existing powers.

Elsewhere in the meeting, Makiko Dogomi, an Upper House lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Party for the People, underlined the importance of securing personnel with know-how on artificial intelligence and economic security at a national intelligence bureau that would serve as the council's secretariat.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]