Active Cyber Defense Bill Passes the Lower House

The bill of active cyber defense (ACD) passed the House of Representatives and was sent to the House of Councillors on April 8th. In spite of concerns on possible infringement of secrecy of communication, the major opposition parties gave approval to the bill with minor revisions. It is likely that security vulnerability of Japan, as seen in increasing cases of breakdown of systems for public infrastrucuture, enable the bill to escape from questions about violating human rights. 

The ACD bill is to establish a framework in which national authority can constantly watch communication among the people. Once the authority finds a sign of cyberattack, the law enables it removing that danger. The law lists up subjects of being protected, which includes basic infrastructure for people’s life, such as electricity, water works or gas supply and public services of national and local governments.

 

Shigeru Ishiba administration has been explaining that the government would collect only mechanic information, such as IP addresses or date of sending emails, and would not sneak into the details of conversation. However, it is still not clear how the authority can distinguish harmful information from ordinary conversation without knowing the substances of exchanged information.

 

Three largest opposition parties, Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Japan Innovation Party and Democratic Party for the People, proposed a revision of the bill to add a sentence to assure protection of privacy. The leading coalition, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, accepted it. The ACD bill finally passed the Lower House with approval of those five parties. They added a clause that “the government cannot unfairly violate secrecy of communication.” Japan Communist Party and Reiwa Shinsengumi voted no to the bill.

 

The government did not rule out a possibility of expanding the object of censoring in the future. Minister for Digital Transformation, Masaaki Taira, referred to necessity of constitutional discussion for future change of the law. Concerning the argument that countermeasures against attacks from foreign countries may violate constitutional requirement not to use force to foreign country, Taira dismissed that interpretation. He also refused immediate report to the Diet about a countermeasure to foreign country, arguing that it would disclose sensitive information.

 

Last December, Japan Airlines suffered from cyberattacks, causing delay of flight and disruption of its network. Toll collection system of Central Nippon Expressway was shut down earlier this month, making long line of cars on the highway. It is necessary for the government to reinforce social infrastructure in Japan against any cyberattacks. As long as seeing Diet discussion in which system security is superior to individual secrecy of communication, it can be said that the society is too dependent on cyber systems to protect basic human rights of the people.

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