Question on Welfare Assistance (seikatsu hogo) and privacy rights

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Hi Blog. Got a question from TtoT at The Community today that deserves answering. In these days of mass layoffs and people on unemployment insurance, apparently the welfare offices are able to call up relatives and check to see if applicants really are financially as badly off as they say. As the poster points out below, there are privacy issues involved. Anyone know more about this? If so, comments section. Thanks. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

===================================

I’ll state from the outset that I am in strange waters on this one,
but an acquaintance from years back that remembers our old group and
the help we offered rang me up a few hours ago and asked me an
interesting question. It has had me poking around the Net and
thinking very hard. Now I turn to y’all.

She and her husband have applied for seikatsuhogo, or welfare
assistance. I knew nothing about this, so I went to the Ministry of
Health, Labour, and Welfare website and found this
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/seikatsuhogo/seikatuhogo.html

Okay, so far so good. But here’s why she called me. It seems that
one of the requirements for receiving this welfare is that the local
government will call relatives and ask about their ability to help
this lady’s family. This seems to be a big problem. Her husband now
seems to be shamed into not applying for help.

But the reason she called me was because she is wondering about a
government agency calling a *relative* and essentially providing
private information, which is that this family is in serious
financial trouble and asking for help from the government.

I just don’t have a clue here, but something does feel odd here.
There must be some sort of regulations related to government workers
passing along information to outsiders. I mean those outside the
immdediate family. The first thing that comes to mind is how they
define *relative*. And why I put it in special marks in the previous
paragraph.

Do any of you know anything about this? Do any of you know where I
can find the regulations pertaining to government responsibility in
maintaining private information? Oddly enough, I can’t find a
government document outlining their regulations, but I assume that’s
just because of my poor Japanese.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
ENDS

3 comments on “Question on Welfare Assistance (seikatsu hogo) and privacy rights

  • I am not sure this will help but if you go to this site
    http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/hourei/data2.html

    and go down just under half of the page you will get to “個人情報の保護に関する法律
    Act on the Protection of Personal Information” and this provides the law on how personal information must be treated. It is only in general terms and not specific to the case in point.

    As a side point, I think it could be used to try and limit the spread of the data in the finger print law. One of the requirements of the law is that the owner of the personal data must on request provide what the data is for and where it can be used. In the finger printing case, if the response from the government is that it is for preventing terrorism and only for use in checking terrorist lists, it would limit where the information could be used (ie it may then be illegal for police to use for crime investigation, immigration to check for overstayers etc).

    Reply
  • I have one question . I just got my visa last month oct. 18 .right now my wife cant work because she is pregnant my visa before i got married is engineer visa . Since then 7months i cant work because i dont have visa right now my wife is applying for seikatsu hogo . Brcause right now im looking for job . My question is . Is there will be a problem in renuing of my visa if my wife apply for seikatsu hogo . I need your answer please.

    —- I don’t know. Ask at your local Immigration Office. But probably not a problem.

    Reply

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