Privacy

This site has no login, no sign-up, no newsletter, no contact form and no comments. It never asks for your name, email address, phone number or any other way of reaching you.

So unless you write to us, there is no personal information here to hold, and none is held.

If you email contact@genjido.com, your address and your message are used only to answer you and to correct what you report, and are passed to no one else.

The operator of this site, Genjido LLC (源氏道合同会社), is responsible for how they are handled.

Being a website, it receives requests. For each one it records the URL asked for, the time, the referring page, the browser type and the IP address, with the country, region and city Cloudflare places that address in.

The site also keeps its own record of how it is used: which pages are opened and what is done on them (an explanation opened, a link followed, how long a page was read and how far down), what is searched for on the site, and what AI assistants ask of it (see “Through an AI assistant” below). So that a second visit from the same browser can be told from a first, the page keeps a random number in your browser for 13 months, only where your browser allows cookies, and sends it with these records.

These records are used to serve the site, to find faults, to deal with abusive load, and to see how the site is used so that it can be improved. They are kept for up to 13 months; only counts of requests, which hold no address, are kept longer. They are not used to identify anyone, and they are never sold.

An AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT may use this site's MCP server or its API on your behalf. Those requests reach this site from the assistant company's servers, not from your browser, and carry only what the assistant asks for: the words to search for or look up, and the provision or amendment to read, with the day, or the version of the law, to read it as of.

For each call, the MCP server records which tool was used and what it was asked — the words searched or looked up, the provision or amendment, the day or version — with the assistant's name and version, its user agent, the address the call came from, how long it took and how much it returned (see “What this site records” above). To slow down a caller that calls too often, it also counts calls per address (and, from an assistant company's addresses, per assistant name as well) for a few minutes. It never receives an account or the conversation.

Some assistants, such as Harvey, connect only once you have allowed them. For those, a japanlaw.org page asks whether the assistant may read the law for you. Choosing Allow creates no account and asks nothing about you: the assistant is given a key that says only which assistant was allowed and until when, and shows it with each call. The site keeps no record of who allowed what; each call's record notes only that a key was used and the web address of the assistant it was given to.

What the assistant's company keeps of your conversation is set by that company's own policy.

To see which pages are read and how often, this site uses Google Analytics, a service run by Google LLC. It is there to count pages, not to find out who you are.

When you open a page, your browser sends Google: the page’s address, with anything you searched for taken out; the address of the page on this site you were on before it, with the same taken out, or, if you came from another site, only that site’s domain; the page’s title; your browser, device, screen size and language setting; and your IP address, which Google uses to estimate roughly which country and region you are in.

Besides the fact that a page was opened, the page sends Google what you do on it — opening an explanation, following a link, copying a link — and how long you read it and how far down. What you searched for is not sent.

So that a second visit from the same browser is counted as the same visitor, Google Analytics stores a random number in a cookie on japanlaw.org (its name starts with _ga). It lasts up to two years. Deleting it only makes your next visit count as a new visitor’s.

Google handles what it receives under its own rules: see Google’s privacy policy and how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

To stop this, install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, or refuse cookies for japanlaw.org in your browser: the site does not load Google Analytics at all in a browser that refuses them. Either way, the site works just the same.

To see how often pages are read and how quickly they appear, this site also uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, a service run by Cloudflare, Inc. It too is there to count pages, not to find out who you are. It is loaded on every page, whatever your cookie settings.

When you open a page, your browser sends Cloudflare: the page’s address and the address of the page you were on before it, both with anything you searched for taken out; your browser, operating system and kind of device; how long the page took to load and to appear; and your IP address.

Cloudflare Web Analytics uses no cookie and stores nothing in your browser. Cloudflare says it does not use your IP address or anything about your browser to tell you apart from other readers and follow you (“fingerprinting”).

Cloudflare handles what it receives under its own rules: see Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

Because it uses no cookie, refusing cookies does not stop it. To stop it, block Cloudflare Web Analytics with a content blocker (a browser extension that blocks ads and tracking); many block it already. The site works just the same without it.

Japan’s Telecommunications Business Act (電気通信事業法, Article 27-12) requires a site to say what your browser sends from it to other companies. On this site, there are two:

First — who receives it: Google LLC, through Google Analytics.

What is sent: the address and title of the page you opened, and the address of the page before it (both with anything you searched for taken out, and only the domain of another site); your browser, device, screen size and language; what you do on the page, and how long and how far down you read it; your IP address; the number stored in the cookie; and the time.

What for: counting which pages of this site are read and how often, to improve it.

How to stop it: the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, or refusing cookies for japanlaw.org in your browser. What Google does with it is set out in Google’s privacy policy.

Second — who receives it: Cloudflare, Inc., through Cloudflare Web Analytics. It is loaded on every page.

What is sent: the address of the page you opened and of the page before it (both with anything you searched for taken out); your browser, operating system and kind of device; how long the page took to load and to appear; and your IP address. No cookie is used, and nothing is stored in your browser.

What for: counting how often the pages of this site are read and how quickly they appear, to improve it.

How to stop it: a content blocker (a browser extension that blocks ads and tracking) set to block Cloudflare Web Analytics. As no cookie is used, refusing cookies does not stop it. What Cloudflare does with it is set out in Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

Nothing else is sent to another company for advertising or for following what you read.

Data collected here is not sold, rented or traded. Apart from what is sent to Google Analytics and Cloudflare Web Analytics, described above, it is not passed to anyone else except where the law requires disclosure.

The site links out — to e-Gov, to the Ministry of Justice's translation database, and elsewhere. What those sites do is governed by their own policies.

Which law someone is reading can say a great deal about their situation. This site cannot tie a search to an account, because there are no accounts. It does record what is searched for on it (see “What this site records” above), to see what readers look for and what they cannot find. What you search for is taken out of everything sent to Google Analytics and Cloudflare Web Analytics.

What your browser remembers — your theme, for instance — stays on your device and is not sent anywhere, apart from the Google Analytics cookie and the random number described above, and one more. When you pick a language at the foot of a page, a cookie holding only that choice is kept for a year and sent to the server, so that the site's bare address opens in your language. It holds nothing else, and it is not set unless you pick. The language of each page is also part of its URL (/en or /ja), so it reaches the server like any other request.

If any of this changes, this page will be updated and the date at the top will change with it.

As of the date on this page, Google Analytics and Cloudflare Web Analytics are the only analytics from other companies on the site, beside the site's own records described above, and there is no advertising.

What this site is, and what it does not promise, is set out in the terms of use.