The government is planning to submit a bill during the extraordinary Diet session this fall to mandate severe penalties for civil servants who leak national secrets, government sources said.
Japan is planning to establish a body similar to the National Security Council in the United States but believes it is necessary to sharpen penalties for leaks as it plans to share sensitive data with the United States, the sources said.
In a meeting in Singapore on Friday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden about a plan to set up an NSC-type institution to lead policymaking on security.
But pursuing the legislation may be hard as New Komeito, the junior partner in Abe's ruling coalition, is said wary of the plan.