Rules of the Personal Information Protection Commission

Rules the Personal Information Protection Commission (個人情報保護委員会) makes on the matters in its charge, to carry out an Act or a Cabinet Order (政令) or under a special delegation from one (Act on the Protection of Personal Information, Article 145). The Commission is set up under Article 49, paragraph (3) of the Act for Establishment of the Cabinet Office (内閣府設置法) and comes under the Prime Minister (Article 130). It is made up of a chair and eight members, four of them part-time, whom the Prime Minister appoints with the consent of both Houses of the Diet, and they exercise their authority independently (Articles 133 and 134). Its work includes supervising how businesses handle personal information, monitoring how administrative organs and similar bodies handle it, and monitoring or supervising how specific personal information (特定個人情報) is handled (Article 132) — personal information that contains an individual number (個人番号), or a code used in its place other than a resident record code (Act on the Use of Numbers to Identify a Specific Individual in Administrative Procedures, Article 2, paragraph (9)). Where that Act leaves a detail to be set by these Rules (個人情報保護委員会規則で定める), the Rules are where it is written.