Customer information apparently stolen from a group company of Benesse Holdings Inc., Japan's largest provider of correspondence education for children, was taken using the ID of a contractor, company sources said.
Records showed that the information was downloaded by a systems engineer who was working as a temporary employee at a company contracted by the Benesse affiliate to manage its databases, the sources said Saturday.
The data were copied several times, likely to a computer loaned out from Benesse, from the affiliate's office in Tama, western Tokyo, late last year and are thought to have been passed on to at least one company that deals in name lists, around January.