Students Personal Data Mismanaged Data Sent to Foreign Businesses Used to Update Apps The Japan News

pPlease disable the ad blocking featureppTo use this site please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the pageppThis website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content and analyzing our website traffic By clicking Accept all you will allow the use of these cookiesppUsers accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent We apologize for any inconvenience causedppThe Yomiuri Shimbunpp100 JST July 16 2024ppLocal governments have authorized Recruit Co a provider of educational apps to directly obtain public school students personal data and manage it The Yomiuri Shimbun has learnedppThe problem is connected to devices such as personal computers and tablets which elementary and junior high schools distribute to their students Recruit sent some of the students personal data collected from its apps to foreign businesses or used the data to improve its other apps that were put up for sale and the affected students parents or guardians were not given a sufficient explanationppThe education ministry plans to conduct a nationwide probe soon believing some local governments have mismanaged the students personal datappMost of the about 9 million elementary and junior high school students in Japan have access to devices on which local governments have installed learning apps developed by private companies Those apps collect students personal data enabling each student to learn in a way tailored to their individual needs However included in the collected data are the students names birth dates and percentage of correctly answered questionsppThe education ministry insists that local governments must take the initiative to collect and manage students data and requires that they supervise app providers and tread carefully when storing data overseas where Japanese laws may not be applicableppBut in some municipalities Recruit obtains personal data directly from students and manages it itself after demanding parents or guardians agree to a privacy policy Recruit provides the data to local governments which entrust the company to manage the datappRecruit then outsources the storage and management of the students personal data to overseas businesses in 13 countries and regions including the United States Europe and Israel Recruit declined to disclose details about the outsourcingppA Yomiuri Shimbun survey found that at least 14 local governments have introduced Recruits apps this fiscal year and about 85000 elementary and junior high school students use the apps Some of the local governments were unaware of the overseas outsourcing and other improper management of students personal datappAn official of Benesse Corp a provider of similar apps in about 9500 schools nationwide said We do not directly obtain students personal data and we store what we do collect in JapanppJN ACCESS RANKINGppThe Japan News Weekly EditionppOur weekly ePaper presents the most noteworthy recent topics in an exciting readable fomatppRead moreppengppjppp 2024 The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbunp