Act on the Use of Numbers to Identify a Specific Individual in Administrative Procedures (My Number Act)

Any business with employees in Japan handles My Numbers, because the number is required for payroll withholding and social insurance filings — which makes this the sectoral law most likely to bind a foreign company that thinks it only has an APPI problem. The Act treats a My Number and the data attached to it as 'specific personal information' and regulates it far more tightly than the APPI regulates ordinary personal data: collection only for the purposes the Act enumerates, notified purposes, identity verification on collection, no use beyond those purposes, no provision to third parties even WITH the individual's consent except as the Act allows, and deletion once the retention period ends. Outsourcing to a payroll or benefits provider is permitted without consent but carries a duty of necessary and appropriate supervision. Breach can attract criminal liability, including imprisonment, for the entity and for individual employees — an exposure the APPI does not create. Marked 'check': the primary text is Japanese-language and the penalty detail was triangulated across independent sources.