OSAKA (Kyodo) The Osaka District Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit filed by 153 residents in Osaka and five nearby prefectures who claimed the Juki Net national resident registry network violates their privacy.
This was the fourth ruling on similar suits targeting the security of Juki Net that have been filed with 13 district courts. The controversial database went online in August 2003.
One court judged the network unconstitutional, saying it violated people's privacy. Two others threw the suits out.
The plaintiffs asked that their personal information be removed from the network and demanded 220,000 yen each in compensation from the government and other parties.
Presiding Judge Fumio Hirotani said Juki Net "is not deemed to pose specific dangers such as information leaks and it cannot be said it violates privacy." The panel of three judges denied the system is unconstitutional.
Plaintiffs have questioned the computerized system's fragile security, which has been a hot topic of debate between the government and various cities and prefectures opposed to the registry.
In October 2003, the Nagano governor announced that a prominent computer security expert the prefecture hired from the United States managed to hack into the system. The central government responded two weeks later, announcing that a U.S. computer company hired to test Juki Net failed to penetrate the system. Neither the security expert nor the company were named.
Thursday's ruling said, "The Constitution guarantees the right to control one's own information by blocking unauthorized gathering and use" concerning "information essential for a person's survival and development," such as personal beliefs.
But information on Juki Net for personal identification, including names and addresses, is "information of a peripheral nature and would not constitute a rights violation if it is used for the right purposes by administrative organs."