Govt to Back Originator Profile as International Standard; Multiple Japanese Projects Eyed to Combat Online Misinformation, Disinformation

The Yomiuri Shimbun

1:00 JST, August 29, 2024

The government plans to support efforts to make Originator Profile (OP), which identifies the disseminators of information on the internet, and similar technologies international standards as part of an effort to counter disinformation and misinformation on the internet, it has been learned.

OP embeds an electric identifier in each piece of information found in internet articles, advertisements and other content, enabling users to verify their source.

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry plans to include about ¥2 billion in its fiscal 2025 budget request to be used for comprehensive countermeasures against online disinformation.

The ministry in fiscal 2024 decided to support six projects selected through public offerings aimed at backing the development of technologies that counter online disinformation and misinformation. Among the projects was one by the Originator Profile Collaborative Innovation Partnership (OPCIP), which is developing OP. The OPCIP was formed by media and other companies.

The development of OP is expected to be completed by the end of March next year. The ministry plans to use the fiscal 2025 budget to support efforts to improve OP’s functions ahead of its practical implementation, ultimately seeking to set the Japanese technology as the international standard.

The ministry will also support the development of technologies to detect AI-generated voices. It will also back experiments to verify the utility of the technologies.

The ministry will study other countries’ countermeasures against disinformation and those provided by major social networking service operators, too.