The Politics of Privacy in Australia and Japan

Thursday, Thursday, July 26 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Akamon Sōgō Kenkyūtō Room 549, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Hongo Campus, University of Tokyo: http://web.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cjg/contact/

Abstract:
Privacy is essential for democracy because of its close connection to individual liberty, and the protection of privacy has long been an important political issue in democratic countries. The rapid development of digital technology, which enables a large amount of information to be transmitted quickly across the world, has increased the difficulty of protecting personal information from involuntary public exposure and has made the protection of privacy even more important for policymakers. To solve this problem, governments in advanced industrial countries have formulated and implemented policy for information privacy protection.

In this talk, I will discuss the development of privacy regimes in Australia and Japan. After the issuance of the OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data, OECD member countries began to set up privacy rules. In Australia, the federal government enacted the Privacy Act of 1988, which established the Privacy Commissioner to regulate only federal government organizations. The Act was amended in 2000 and private-sector organizations became subject to regulation by the Commissioner. In Japan, the government passed the Personal Information Protection Act of 1988 that was only applicable to personal information held by government organizations. The rapid growth in the use of advanced digital networks subsequently prompted the government to enact the Personal Information Protection Act of 2004.

Through these processes, each government has developed a privacy regime. The Australian privacy regime has a government agency specialized in privacy regulation, but it does not have a strong enforcement power. In contrast, Japan’s privacy regime has a very fragmented structure where each government ministry deals with privacy issues in its own jurisdiction. Although each privacy regime prompts government and private-sector organizations to improve privacy protection, critics contend that both are inadequate in comparison to the strong and extensive European Union privacy regime.

The talk will explain the development of each regime by using an analytical framework of the confluence of four policy streams—international rules, developmental policy, government reform, and human rights—the politics of privacy.

Biography:
Eiji Kawabata is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and a Visiting Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Keio University. His areas of expertise include Japanese politics, comparative and international political economy, and comparative public policy. He is the author of Contemporary Government Reform in Japan: The Dual State in Flux (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2006). Currently, as an SSRC Abe Fellow, he works on a project on the politics of privacy in the Asia Pacific, focusing on Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.

CJG:
The ISS Contemporary Japan Group provides English-speaking residents of the Tokyo area with an opportunity to hear cutting-edge research in social science and related policy issues, as well as a venue for researchers and professionals in or visiting Tokyo to present and receive knowledgeable feedback on their latest research projects. Admission is free and advance registration is not required. Everyone is welcome.

For more information, please visit our website: http://web.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cjg/ or contact
Gregory W. NOBLE (noble@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
ISHIDA Hiroshi (ishida@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp)