Japanese law much tough on data breaches, according to reader
Interesting response from a reader to Wednesday’s post about BlueCross BlueShield losing custody of personal information for 850,000 doctors as a result of a laptop theft:
This company is lucky that they are not in Japan. The penalty for data loss here is extremely high. Basically, it can bankrupt a company. “In Japan, companies pay for security breaches in the form of an ‘apology fine’, sometimes per user account affected, which can amount to millions of dollars,” on top of the monetary fine you are likely to also lose all of your clients, essentially ending the company. North American and European companies really should look into exacting tougher laws.
Whether that would be wise or not, there’s no need to your breath, my fellow Americans: I have a hard time seeing the pro-business political culture of Washington adopting this hard-line stance any time soon.
