The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that ordered the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to pay ¥90.2 million in damages to 17 Muslim residents whose privacy was violated when the police department leaked secret investigative data about them online in 2010.
"As the data is believed to have been leaked by an official of the Metropolitan Police Department, the MPD is at fault in supervising the data," the presiding judge, Shin Takano, said in his ruling.
"This is a grave violation of privacy and defamation for the plaintiffs," Takano said.
The plaintiffs had demanded ¥187 million in damages from the metropolitan and central governments, as they did in the previous trial at the Tokyo District Court.
Internal MPD documents on Muslim individuals living in Japan, including photos, addresses and details of their relationships with others, appeared on the Internet in 2010 after being gathered as part of MPD international counterterrorism investigations.
The MPD investigated the leak but failed to find the leaker before the statute of limitations expired in October 2013.
The plaintiffs argued that police investigations into the collection of personal information on people of certain religions should be illegal. But the ruling said that although the investigative method used in this case was dubious, it was compelling given the risk of international terrorist attacks.
"We regret that our arguments were not accepted," the MPD said after the high court issued the ruling and added that it will consider how to respond to the decision after thoroughly examining it.