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The story
The operator of the car-sharing service “Times Car” suffered unauthorized access to its systems, leaking roughly 6.6 million pieces of personal information. Of these, 1.6 million included identity-verification materials such as driver’s license images. After a lawyer representing the victims opened a registration site for a planned class action on September 30, more than 10,000 people had signed up by October 2. On 5ch, threads mixed criticism of the company’s lax crisis management, a cynical view that only the lawyers stand to profit from the lawsuit, and comments pointing out the limits of using a driver’s license for identity verification.
Regarding the issue in which the car-sharing service “Times Car” had its systems breached and driver’s license images and other data leaked, it has been learned that more than 10,000 people have registered on a site set up by a lawyer in preparation for a class-action lawsuit.
The issue stems from unauthorized access to the systems of “Times Car,” a car-sharing service operated by a subsidiary of Park24, which resulted in roughly 6.6 million pieces of personal information leaking outside the company. Of these, 1.6 million included identity-verification materials such as driver’s license images.
In response, a Tokyo-based lawyer opened a registration site on September 30 in preparation for a class-action lawsuit seeking damages from the operating company. By October 2, more than 10,000 members whose information was leaked had registered, indicating their intent to join.
Source: news.web.nhk / Original article here
What people said
Oden-Poking Man: "Yep, that's right." (a famous old 2ch/5ch meme figure)
Phishing via that very site, probably
For all we know, this registration site itself exists just to harvest personal data
It's the age of AI warfare — all your data gets stolen eventually anyway
My info leaked from the job-change site en Japan too
All I got was an apology email
It would've been a disaster if my resume got published publicly, but it didn't go that far
Sounds like CIC or JICC (Japanese credit bureaus) can check for you
You get an email if your info leaked
I got one saying my license photo had been leaked
Apparently if you're registered (or ever were), you've almost certainly been leaked
Only the lawyers come out ahead
I'm going to contact the law firm to check whether your claim is true.
If it's a lie, be ready to take responsibility.
From what I hear, the lawyer covers the litigation costs and takes 30% on success
so I'm joining anyway—
So far I've only gotten one email from Times, saying they're "going to investigate"
You're awfully desperate to avoid getting sued
If you sue like this and Times goes under, you're the one who ends up in trouble
That's exactly the mistaken "there are plenty of replacements for you" attitude — it only bites you once the thing is actually gone
A lot of people can't tell the difference between things that are fine to lose and things that'll actually hurt once they're gone
Like hell I'd keep using it
Why would you assume people are still going to use it
I was basically forced into it by my employer, so I won't be inconvenienced at all [if it shuts down]
They really should let users delete their purchase history after a certain amount of time has passed
Stuff like 20-year-old purchase records is just sitting there
That might be true in terms of what's displayed, but since you can't see it on the site anymore, whether it's actually "deleted" is a separate question.
Having 20-year-old records still accessible is a nice touch of the service, but even if users could delete purchase history from a few days ago, it would still remain on the company's side for their retention period.
I think there was something like a 10-year receipt retention requirement for tax purposes
That should have actually been a burden for companies
But as storage got cheap enough to start generating value,
maybe now, conversely, there needs to be a deletion obligation for the sake of privacy
A driver's license is enough for ID verification!!"
It'd be hilarious if the people who said that got scammed after someone forged a license using their info lol
My Number cards get forged too, you know
Aren't they just not making proper use of the chip in the license?
This country just lets everyone get away with "we don't need to spend money on security"
Exactly
Their crisis management is lax
Even this time, they should have just shut the system down the moment the intrusion happened
But they prioritized keeping current customers able to use Times Car over stopping the theft of customer data, so they let the leak keep going
Guess that's just how Japan does things
Times Car: "Why would we do that, when there's a company that got off with handing out 500-yen QUO cards?"
Maybe this is the moment to reform the law so companies with data leaks are at least required to cover JICC/CIC update fees
As it stands now, it just ends with a casual 'our bad lol'
Looks like it leaked via Amazon purchases
8 million victims, so you guys will probably get an email too
Wait, E-Store was Amazon?
Guess this applies if you used Amazon Pay through Shop Serve
I'd heard E-Store got hit too, but the scale here is insane
Amazon too? This one's just as bad but it's barely getting covered in the news
As long as it brings down the company, mission accomplished, right?
The going rate is about 10,000 yen, so 10,000 yen × 10,000 people = 100 million yen
The lawyers' fees alone would be sizable
And the number of plaintiffs will keep growing
Though Times might show some good faith before it gets that far
> In Japanese lawsuits over personal data leaks, 10,000 yen has become an important benchmark figure for damages (consolation money) awards.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Times Car is operated by a company within the Park24 group, and a leak of roughly 6.6 million records ranks among the larger personal-data breaches in Japan. The lawyer’s registration drive surpassed 10,000 sign-ups just three days after opening on September 30, reflecting the high level of public interest. In the thread, criticism of the company’s crisis management sits alongside a cynical view that only the lawyers stand to gain from the lawsuit, and the comment citing “10,000 yen as the benchmark for damages” draws on the going rate from past personal-data-leak lawsuits. That said, it’s easy to miss from the thread alone that registering on the site is merely a declaration of intent to join a planned suit — it doesn’t mean a lawsuit has actually been filed or that damages have been determined. Also worth noting: the “E-Store” mentioned in the posts around #190 is not Amazon itself but a separate company that provides payment infrastructure such as Amazon Pay, so the two shouldn’t be confused.
※This article is composed of excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Times Car license-image leak: Over 10,000 register for class-action lawsuit.”
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