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The story
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications issued administrative guidance to NTT Docomo after it was found to have shared the personal data of over 340,000 subscribers who had signed up for rate plans online with Amazon without their consent. On the forum, reactions mixed shock that unauthorized sharing of personal data with a third party results in nothing more than “guidance,” with others noting that Docomo and Amazon already run a points-linking partnership, so none of this is surprising. Some also pointed out that the explanation given at the press conference about a separate data leak from unauthorized access, which made headlines around the same time, was hard to follow.
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Issues Administrative Guidance to NTT Docomo Over Sharing Subscriber Data With Amazon Without Consent
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
This is a huge deal, this is a crime.
That one wasn't even called "fraud."
When a big company does it, it's just "improper accounting."
Well, considering Dentsu and Fuji TV still get away with whatever they want to this day…
They never gave consent, that's what.
everyone on ahamo rn lol
I watched the press conference and still couldn't really follow it.
au's network is gonna be the only one left standing now
Is that two outs already?
Called game, match over — same as always.
That amakudari shield is working overtime 🤭
Sompo Japan, which ran wild during the BigMotor scandal, also got its money's worth out of taking in ex-bureaucrats.
They've had zero business sense for ages.
Remember the PRADA Phone lolll
Hope Docomo doesn't cave to the complainers.
Plenty of Japanese companies have leaked personal data recently and didn't even get a warning for it.
Heck, even the government has leaked personal data.
That's flat-out collusion.
Well, it used to be the state-run telecom monopoly.
It's sticky with collusion everywhere, pulling strings behind the scenes.
Why does a crime that's written into the law books as carrying fines in the hundreds of millions of yen get settled with mere "guidance" when a company does it?
Makes you wonder if it's fine that the Self-Defense Forces get student info from local governments to use for recruiting pitches, then.
If it's a hack, then they can just hold an apology press conference and call it a day, right?
Also figured all along that the flood of spam calls lately is leaking out from places like this.
So the spam calls really are coming from leaked data, huh.
Same as me…
Every night on the train home I inhale a Big Mac and 7-Eleven pork ramen, then wash it all down with a Strong Zero (cheap, strong canned chuhai).
I've gotten so locally famous they call me "Big Eater John."
Dead serious.
Background and Key Points of This Story
Administrative guidance from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is a regulatory measure calling for a company to correct a violation of its obligations under the Personal Information Protection Act — it does not come with a fine or criminal penalty. On the forum, the fact that non-consensual third-party data sharing ended in nothing more than “guidance” drew a wave of complaints that Japan is “too soft for a country supposedly governed by law,” but that reaction overlooks the institutional gap between administrative guidance and criminal punishment: Docomo was not actually fined in this case. It’s also worth noting that the “leak from unauthorized access” mentioned in the thread was a separate incident reported independently of this one, with a different cause from the non-consensual third-party sharing this article covers. And the people affected were limited to subscribers who signed up for a rate plan online — not Docomo’s entire subscriber base — a distinction that’s easy to miss.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Livegalileo channel) thread “[Sad News] Docomo handed subscriber data to Amazon without permission, gets administrative guidance from the Ministry lmaoooooooooo.”
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