Economic Security Info to be ‘Specially Designated Secrets’; Legal Revisions Also Meant to Improve Security Clearance Assessment

The Yomiuri Shimbun

2:00 JST, December 10, 2025

The government plans to put highly confidential information about economic affairs under the jurisdiction of the Law on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, according to draft revisions of the enforcement guideline for the law that The Yomiuri Shimbun has obtained.

Information about important materials, supply chains for advanced technologies and other matters related to the nation’s security will be thoroughly protected under the law.

The revisions will also include measures for improving efficiency to conduct security clearance assessment, which checks whether national public servants and others in special positions are at risk of leaking such information.

The enforcement guideline has been revised about every five years since the enforcement of the law in December 2014.

The upcoming revisions are the second following those in June 2020, and the Cabinet is set to approve them soon.

Information about defense, diplomacy and the prevention of acts of spying and terrorism is kept secret due to the risk of causing severe damage to Japan’s national security if it is leaked. The law stipulates that such information constitutes specially designated secrets.

The upcoming revisions are aimed at clarifying that information related to economic security will also be covered by the law.

If highly confidential pieces of such information match the criteria, they will be categorized as specially designated secrets, separate from the information covered by the Law on Protection and Utilization of Critical Economic Security Information that was enforced in May this year.

Some critics have said that the jurisdiction of the two laws partially overlaps. The government is aiming for seamless enforcement of the laws after the revisions improve the consistency between the two laws.

In addition, the draft revisions stipulate that interviews will be held after necessary information is collected to determine whether people handling specially designated secrets have criminal records or financial troubles. This will allow security clearance assessment to be conducted more accurately.

To make the assessment more efficient, the draft also stipulates that administrative organizations will be able to share records, if the officials undergoing the assessment have already been screened by other administrative entities.

The draft revisions stipulate that administrative organizations should exercise greater care so that people who have not undergone the security clearance assessment will never erroneously access secrets, to prevent specially designated secrets from being leaked.

The draft also stipulates that administrative organizations should strive to thoroughly guard secrets through such measures as improving job education for workers.