Japanese Data Privacy Developments - Global Transfers And Privacy Notices Code

In recent weeks, Japanese data protection and privacy law has seen developments in two areas:

1. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) issuing its first code of practice on privacy notices
2. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) approving Japan's participation in the APEC Cross Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) system

METI Code of Practice (the Code)

This comes on the back of a period of activity for data protection legislation in Japan.  In December 2013, the IT Strategy HQ of the Cabinet Office published an Institutional Review Policy concerning utilization of personal data, with a plan to publish proposed amendments to the Japanese Data Protection Act in June 2014.