The Defense Agency admitted Tuesday it has collected personal information -- including data normally not available to the public -- on teenagers eligible for recruitment into the Self-Defense Forces.

The information, which included data on the teens' parents, came from municipal offices that handle residency registers and was used when the agency sent mail to teenagers encouraging them to sign up.

The practice started in 1966, the agency said.

The information included details stored on the resident registry at municipal offices but not publicly available under the Basic Resident Register Law.

Shoei Yamanaka, the agency's deputy vice minister, said he does not believe it was illegal under the resident registry law to accept information about the parents of youths eligible to be SDF personnel.

However, Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba admitted the practice was inappropriate, saying only information already in the public domain should be gathered.

A House of Representatives committee currently debating bills on the protection of personal information agreed later Tuesday to summon Ishiba before the panel on Wednesday to discuss the matter.

An agency official in charge of recruiting SDF personnel who briefed reporters on the matter said information the agency obtained last year from the city of Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture, for example, contained some sensitive details concerning parents of youths it hoped to recruit.

He said he cannot reveal the nature of the information unless he obtains the consent of the Ishikawa Prefectural Government.

The official also admitted that the agency has received similar data from a number of other municipalities, although he did not identify those municipalities. Another official admitted later that the agency receives information from municipalities in roughly half of the nation's 47 prefectures.

The revelation came after the Mainichi Shimbun reported in its Tuesday morning edition that the agency has asked municipalities across the country since 1966 to submit information concerning youths aged 18, the age of eligibility to join the SDF.

The newspaper also said at least one prefecture -- Ishikawa -- has been providing sensitive information of teenagers, including the state of their health and technical licenses they have obtained, under a special agreement with the local SDF office.

The agency official said the agency has examined records dating back to 1996 but has found no evidence it received information on the health of individual youths targeted for recruitment.

He also said some SDF jobs are open to people aged 15 or above, and therefore the information it received may include data on youths aged between 15 and 18.

The official stressed that the agency only asked municipalities to share information on youths eligible for recruitment for government jobs on a voluntary basis. About 30 percent of municipal governments have lists of those youths for their own recruitment purposes, he said.

The Basic Resident Register Law of 1967 permits access to just four categories of information on the resident registry kept by municipalities: name, address, sex and date of birth. Other information, such as the name of the head of the household to which the person belongs or the person's status regarding the national health insurance program, cannot be disclosed.

"We should not obtain information other than the four items, even if it is parents' names," Ishiba told a news conference following the day's regular Cabinet meeting. "Obtaining data on people's health is even more intolerable."

The agency said it determined last June that there was a legal question and issued verbal warnings in November to local SDF offices not to obtain data other than the publicly accessible information.

The agency added it is planning to issue an formal notice in the near future.

The Diet is currently debating a bill on the protection of personal information, but critics have warned that it lacks provisions to protect against unwarranted gathering of data by government bodies.

The Defense Agency came under fire last June amid revelations it had secretly compiled personal data on people who filed requests for the disclosure of information at the agency, which included the political inclinations of individuals.