Press Conference by SUZUKI Shunichi, Minister of Finance and Minister of State for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

(Tuesday, September 3, 2024, 10:43 am to 10:48 am)

Q.

I will ask you about the reports submitted by the four non-life insurance companies to the FSA on August 30.
It was found that there were 2.5 million cases of information leakage, and that some were heinous, based on common sense, where the non-life insurance companies themselves directly had their employees temporarily transferred to agencies leak policyholders' information. Are these cases heinous enough to be subject to administrative actions or are they considered just minor misconducts? What is your view?

A.

There have been various cases of misconduct found in the non-life insurance industry, and the leakage of information of such a large number of policyholders occurred subsequently, as you mentioned. It is very regrettable.
On August 30, the four non-life insurance companies submitted their reports in response to the FSA's order. At present, the FSA is examining the content of the reports to ascertain the details of the facts, analyze root causes, and verify the effectiveness of their recurrence prevention measures.
Accordingly, at this point in time when the verification is underway, I cannot tell what action the FSA will take eventually, including whether or not to issue administrative actions.
However, without making prejudgments, the FSA will deal with this issue strictly from the perspective of legal compliance and protection of policyholders, in accordance with the details clarified through examination and verification. This is our stance at present.