Japan plans to enhance its surveillance and regulatory measures to prevent foreign interference in elections.

The Cabinet Secretariat's National Cybersecurity Office will play a key role in identifying problems that must be addressed to create a system for dealing with threats in an integrated manner.

In last month's Upper House election, foreign actors were suspected to be behind the spread of disinformation on social media.

Election interference "poses a risk to democracy, but there's no specific body to handle it," cybersecurity minister Masaaki Taira told a news conference Friday, stressing the need to create a body to oversee measures.

Election interference often involves information manipulation and propaganda aimed at influencing public opinion and policy decisions.

By spreading disinformation and extremist discourse on the internet during elections, foreign actors seek to destabilize political systems through social divisions while supporting the campaigns of specific candidates and parties.

Professor Takamichi Saito of Meiji University's Cybersecurity Laboratory said that election interference is "part of military strategy."

Russia and China are suspected of meddling in Britain's 2016 referendum on whether to leave the European Union, in U.S. presidential elections since the same year and in the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election.

In last month's Upper House election, some information was spread in an unnatural manner on social media, likely by automated bots. Some accounts on X linked to websites likely associated with Russia were frozen.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kazuhiko Aoki told a news conference during the election campaign period that Japan "has become a target of influence operations" by foreign actors.

Currently, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Foreign and Defense ministries are tasked with gathering and analyzing information, while the communications ministry is tasked with asking social media platform operators to address inappropriate posts. A cross-agency effort is becoming necessary as the threat of election interference grows.

Key issues to be considered by the government include establishing measures to block content, such as the removal of problematic posts and bot accounts.

The government faces a difficult challenge in determining how to conduct fact checks and regulate radical statements, including those labeling foreign nationals as enemies.

A legal framework on the matter must be consistent with constitutionally protected freedom of speech, so designing such a system is expected to be a complicated procedure.

"There are a wide range of issues to consider, such as how much obligation to impose on social media platform operators," a government source said.

The National Cybersecurity Office was established last month to oversee active cyberdefense policy. The office will play a central role in investigating suspected interference in the Upper House race and measures other countries take against such interference.