{"id":2160,"date":"2009-01-27T14:04:39","date_gmt":"2009-01-27T05:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=2160"},"modified":"2009-01-31T12:46:03","modified_gmt":"2009-01-31T03:46:03","slug":"question-on-welfare-assistance-seikatsu-hogo-and-privacy-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=2160","title":{"rendered":"Question on Welfare Assistance (seikatsu hogo) and privacy rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Handbook<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"Foreign<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"JAPANESE<\/a>
\nHi Blog. Got a question from TtoT at The Community<\/a> 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<\/p>\n

===================================<\/p>\n

I’ll state from the outset that I am in strange waters on this one,
\nbut an acquaintance from years back that remembers our old group and
\nthe help we offered rang me up a few hours ago and asked me an
\ninteresting question. It has had me poking around the Net and
\nthinking very hard. Now I turn to y’all.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

She and her husband have applied for seikatsuhogo, or welfare
\nassistance. I knew nothing about this, so I went to the Ministry of
\nHealth, Labour, and Welfare website and found this
\nhttp:\/\/www.mhlw.go.jp\/bunya\/seikatsuhogo\/seikatuhogo.html<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, so far so good. But here’s why she called me. It seems that
\none of the requirements for receiving this welfare is that the local
\ngovernment will call relatives and ask about their ability to help
\nthis lady’s family. This seems to be a big problem. Her husband now
\nseems to be shamed into not applying for help.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But the reason she called me was because she is wondering about a
\ngovernment agency calling a *relative* and essentially providing
\nprivate information, which is that this family is in serious
\nfinancial trouble and asking for help from the government.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I just don’t have a clue here, but something does feel odd here.
\nThere must be some sort of regulations related to government workers
\npassing along information to outsiders. I mean those outside the
\nimmdediate family. The first thing that comes to mind is how they
\ndefine *relative*. And why I put it in special marks in the previous
\nparagraph.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Do any of you know anything about this? Do any of you know where I
\ncan find the regulations pertaining to government responsibility in
\nmaintaining private information? Oddly enough, I can’t find a
\ngovernment document outlining their regulations, but I assume that’s
\njust because of my poor Japanese.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.<\/strong><\/em>
\nENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japanese-government","category-labor-issues","category-tangents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}