Storage devices believed to have been lost in the Japanese city of Amagasaki have been found, according to local authorities, hours after the incident triggered worries about the safety of private data of 460,000 citizens stored on the devices.
The USB storage devices were in the possession of an employee working for a company that was subcontracted by the Kansai regional branch of BIPROGY Inc. The company was subcontracted to pay COVID-19 pandemic relief subsidies on behalf of the Amagasaki city government to households exempt from residence tax.
The Loss
On June 21, the employee took the devices from the municipality’s administration information center to transfer the data. Once the data transfer was completed, he went to a restaurant and drank alcohol for about three hours.On the way back home, he fell asleep. When he woke up, the employee realized that the bag containing the USBs was missing, and the next day, he reported the loss to the police.
“We will thoroughly ensure security management when handling electronic data … We will work to regain our residents’ trust by heightening awareness of the importance of protecting personal information,” city officials said in a statement, according to the media outlet.
Mistaken Transfer
A similar mishap with COVID-19 relief funds took place in Japan last month when 46.3 million yen ($343,000) that was earmarked for 463 households in the town of Abu was sent to the bank account of a single individual.The funds were mistakenly transferred to the account of Sho Taguchi who then transferred the money to three domestic online payment services. He then claimed to have spent all the money on overseas casino websites.
Authorities later recovered the money by seizing bank accounts of the three online payment services under the National Tax Collection Law.