Request for Provision of Statistical Data that will Contribute to Preventing the Spread of COVID-19

1. Purpose and details of the request

It is important to ascertain the status of the spread of COVID-19 and risks in respective regions, and take countermeasures such as providing appropriate information, requesting people to engage in social distancing, and preventing the occurrence of clusters (groups of people wherein correlations among patients are found), thereby avoiding an explosive increase in infections and minimizing infections, serious cases and deaths to the extent possible.

The utilization of data held by platform service providers and mobile communication providers that will contribute to ascertaining flows of people in respective regions, detecting clusters at an early stage, or otherwise contributing to preventing the spread of COVID-19 (such as data statistically tabulating and analyzing user movements and histories of using services) is expected to enable the following and support effective implementation of measures for preventing the spread of COVID-19:

• Verification of the effectiveness of measures to secure social distancing, such as requests to stay home;
• Verification of the effectiveness of measures for preventing COVID-19 clusters; and
• Sophistication of measures for preventing COVID-19 clusters to be taken from now.

Therefore, the Government of Japan decided to request platform service providers and mobile communication providers to provide statistical data that will contribute to preventing the spread of COVID-19, under the names of the Cabinet Secretariat, MIC, MHLW and METI.

Data requested to be provided is limited to statistical data that does not fall under personal information under laws and regulations. Provided data will be used only by the departments of the government in charge of measures for preventing the spread of COVID-19 solely for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19, and will be deleted promptly upon the completion of measures taken by the relevant departments.

There is a possibility that the provision of data falling under personal information under laws and regulations may be requested if any additional necessity arises. However, the provision of such data will be requested under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (Act No. 57 of 2003) or other related laws and regulations and will be limited to cases where businesses have obtained the consent of individuals regarding the provision of data or cases where exceptional provisions specified by the same Act are applied.

Platform service providers and mobile communication providers who agree with the purpose of this request are asked to contact the following responsible department of MHLW.

Adjustments have already been made with the Personal Information Protection Commission regarding the details of this request.

2. Written request

• Request for Provision of Statistical Data that will Contribute to Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 (in Japanese) (PDF:222KB)PDF

3. Reference

• "Encouragement of Conclusion of Agreement on Provision of Information Contributing to Measures against COVID-19 Clusters" (March 27, 2020) Link

Division in Charge

Information Economy Division, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau