Just this week, as Juki Net went live, the headlines furnished two examples of how unprotected information can be.

ECONOMIST: Japan

Topping it off, within just two days of Juki Net's launch, personal data on roughly 2, 500 people had already been mailed to strangers.

ECONOMIST: Japan

Finally, apart from these legal restrictions, officials at the home-affairs ministry, which oversees Juki Net, place great stock in their procedures for catching abuses.

ECONOMIST: Japan

Meanwhile, the home affairs ministry, the would-be guardian of Juki Net's integrity, revealed only last month that a separate data-sharing network it oversees for local governments was easily vulnerable to hackers.

ECONOMIST: Japan

Although a clause in the 1999 law that set Juki Net up called on the government to submit a broad privacy bill before it could become active, officials point out that the same law placed restrictions on the system it created: the data cannot be shared with (non-governmental) third parties or used for purposes that are not already specified.

ECONOMIST: Japan