Corporate Privacy Governance: The Most Priority Action Is “Appointment of Responsible Person” [Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications/Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry]

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and the Japan Information Processing Development Corporation (JIPDEC) have released the results of a questionnaire on privacy governance (preliminary version). 314 general consumers and 291 companies (member companies of the IoT Acceleration Consortium) responded. “Corporate governance,” a mechanism to ensure the transparency and fairness of corporate ethics, has become commonplace. Attention has been paid. In July 2021, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released the "Corporate Privacy Governance Guide in the DX Era" to help business owners actively commit to privacy issues and build a system to address them throughout the organization. Book ver1.1” has been published.

Consumers: More than 70% are cautious about providing information

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First of all, we ask consumers how much they are interested in privacy protection (appropriate handling of personal information, data related to personal behavior and status not limited to personal information, information with high privacy, etc.). When asked, 17.2% said they were "very interested" and 56.4% said they were "somewhat interested", showing more than 70% interest. At the same time, 32.2% of respondents said they would "minimize the provision of such information due to concerns" and 38.2% said they would "do it cautiously, even if there were monetary benefits or points given." occupies In addition, when selecting one from similar services and products, 19.1% of respondents answered that they would "strongly consider" and 37.9% "would consider" the extent to which they evaluated each company's approach to privacy. , 31.5% "Somewhat consider", it turned out that nearly 90% are considering. Looking at the selection of services and products by age group, 32.4% of young people under the age of 29 answered that they would "consider it very much." It seems that they are sensitive to the handling of privacy only in the layer where there are many SNS users.

Companies: Discrepancies between consumer evaluations and actions prioritized by companies

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Next, we asked companies about their efforts to protect privacy. First, when asked about their corporate stance, "Will dissemination of information on the status of efforts to protect privacy influence the consumption behavior of customers?" I think + I think I can do it to some extent). Therefore, when asked about the various actions recommended in the Privacy Governance Guidebook, "Are you actually taking action?" , More than 50% were working on it. On the other hand, less than 40% of respondents answered that they would like to hear opinions from third parties such as external experts, formulate operational rules, or conduct in-house training. However, the "consumer evaluation" of these actions emphasizes rule-making and opinion gathering. In that respect, there is a discrepancy between the consumer's evaluation and the actions prioritized by companies. Regarding the "Company privacy governance guidebook in the DX era", 65.3% of the companies knew of its existence, but only 27.1% of the total understood the contents.

Survey overview

・[Survey target]・For companies: IoT promotion consortium member companies, etc. (large companies to small and medium enterprises/startups)・For consumers: Survey company registered monitors・[Survey method] Internet survey ・ [Survey period] For companies: September 2021, for consumers: August 2021 ・ [Number of valid responses] 291 companies for companies, 314 people for consumers