About 100 New Cases Found of Unlawful Handling of Government Secrets by Japanese Self-Defense Forces Personnel

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:08 JST, December 25, 2024

About 100 new cases have been found in which Self-Defense Forces personnel unlawfully handled government specially designated secrets, according to government sources.

In many of the cases, SDF personnel failed to perform necessary procedures when they were loaned to or returned from the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA).

The government plans to publish the results of their investigation and punish the people involved.

According to the sources, when personnel of the Ground Self-Defense Force and the Maritime Self-Defense Force who have worked at Defense Ministry headquarters are loaned to the ATLA, they must reobtain security clearance certificates if they are going to handle secrets there.

As the ATLA conducts research into and development of defense equipment, SDF personnel to be loaned to the agency must obtain these certificates again even if they have already been certified.

They are required to go through this process again when returning to SDF headquarters, but many cases have been found in which the mandatory procedures were not followed.

The sources said that the problems arose due to the SDF officers in charge of personnel affairs misinterpreting the Law on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets.

The law was enacted in 2014 to protect government secrets related to diplomacy, national defense and prevention of spying and terrorism, which have to be handled with extreme care.

Similar cases were confirmed to have arisen in the Air Self-Defense Force as well, and the ministry publicized them in July.

However, Defense Ministry officials did not properly share their awareness that those ways of handling secrets were against the law.

When another investigation of the matter was conducted, the cases constituting illegal acts were unveiled.

Investigators found such cases as one in which a person recorded data containing specially designated secrets on a USB memory stick, in violation of internal rules, and one in which a person mistakenly threw out data containing such secrets.

In July, the MSDF announced that there were 58 cases in which personnel in its fleets had unlawfully handled specially designated secrets. At the time, the government punished about 120 personnel in the MSDF and the ministry, including an administrative vice minister and the chief of staff of the Joint Staff.