http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080115TDY01305.htm The Yomiuri Shimbun Jan. 15, 2008 To prevent industrial spying that jeopardizes corporate secrets, the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry has decided to push for the enactment of a new law that will enable authorities to more easily establish a criminal case against a spy once he or she takes confidential information from a company. The theft or leaking of Japanese companies' proprietary technical information to overseas firms and governments is a growing concern for industries. Under the Penal Code, however, it is impossible to prosecute an industrial spy only for stealing confidential information. The new law is aimed at clamping down on espionage offenses and protecting companies' competitive strengths. The law also will aim to prevent technology that can be used for military purposes from being taken outside the firm or firms that own it. The ministry also plans to revise the Patent Law so that patents on technology or ideas that are important in terms of security issues do not need to be made public. The ministry intends to submit bills for both the new law and the revised Patent Law to the ordinary Diet session next year. The Unfair Competition Prevention Law has served as the basis for prosecuting people for industrial espionage, which is regarded under the law as the offense of improperly accessing business secrets. However, it can be applied only when someone has leaked confidential information about a company that is important for its business to a rival company, thereby hindering fair competition. Moreover, the law requires that the person or company that has received the leaked information be identified, even if the firm is based overseas, which makes it extremely difficult to establish an industrial spying case. As a result, no industrial spy has been indicted under the law. Also, if information that can be used for military purposes is leaked overseas or to a company that is not a rival of the owner of the information, such a case cannot be established under the law. What is more, stealing information is not regarded as theft under the Penal Code because the stolen information is neither money nor an object. Therefore, the ministry has concluded there is a need to clamp down a wide variety of industrial espionage activities and breaches of security and is considering consulting on the matter at the Industrial Structure Council, an advisory panel under the economy, trade and industry minister, in spring after discussing details of the new law at a study group inside the ministry. Under the ministry's plan, the new law will be designed to clamp down on theft of information and will be designed so that someone can be prosecuted only for intentionally obtaining and/or leaking company information that is important for its business operations and is generally treated as confidential information within the company. In March, a Chinese engineer employed by Denso Corp. in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture, was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement in connection with taking a company computer containing product data. It was known at the time that he had returned to China three times at around the same time he had downloaded a huge amount of product design data. But the police were not able to establish whether the data had been handed to another company and gave up trying to build a case. ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org/mailman/listinfo/isn
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