This paper clarifies “the constraint unique to the Japanese legal system ” which is an obstacle to the introduction of the surcharge system in the Personal Information Protection Law, and examines whether it is possible to introduce the surcharge system in the Personal Information Protection Law.

First, I introduce the debate on surcharges in the process of revising the Personal Information Protection Law. Second, I present the legislative precedent of domestic surcharge systems. Third, based on these considerations, I clarify the implication of “the constraint unique to the Japanese legal system” and recommend practical amendments to introduce a surcharge system in the Personal Information Protection Law.

Crimes Related to Electronic or Magnetic Records of Unauthorized Commands (Penal Code Chapter XIX-2), that introduced at the request of the Convention on Cyber Crime, was introduced to prevent damage from computer viruses, protect the trust in programs, and thereby maintain smooth functions of information processing. The object of the crime is defined as an “electronic or magnetic records that give unauthorized commands” to have it perform functions against “the user’s intention.”

Therefore, I argued about the meaning of “the user’s intention” with reference to the Coinhive case. In that case, mining of virtual currency was discussed. Considering the nature of the crime, the acceptability from the normative point of view is the essence of judgment. Although the abstract criteria set in the precedent were correct, there are problems in concrete judgments, and revision is desirable to solve them.

Facial recognition technology is a frequently used and generally accepted technology. On June 8, 2020, IBM said that it would stop offering facial recognition software for “mass surveillance or racial profiling” to respond to the death in police custody of George Floyd. Amazon has also banned the police from using its controversial facial recognition software for a year. However, body cameras equipped with facial recognition technology can hold police officers accountable for any acts of misconduct. On the other hand, the use of facial recognition technology has sparked debate over violations of the First Amendment rights and personal privacy. This paper will make recommendations on the potential benefits and drawbacks of using facial recognition technology for criminal investigation.

The Road Traffic Act, the Road Transport Vehicle Act, and the Safety Regulations for Road Vehicles were revised and came into effect on April 1, 2020, and it became legal in Japan to put so-called Level 3 self-driving vehicles into practical use on public roads. The Road Transport Vehicle Act requires the installation of Data Recording Device, which is important digital evidence for re-enacting accident situations together with Drive Recorders and EDRs. It is necessary to properly examine these digital evidences in the civil lawsuits, and in particular, to ensure the identification and authentication of them and accurate reenactments by them. This article shows that, referring to the concept of “relevant evidence” in criminal procedure, even in civil procedure, the regulation of the court’s discretion (presentation of factors to be considered on finding fact) based on the concept of “relevance of evidence” is performed to ensure proper fact finding.

This paper examines the possibility of “inheritance” of access rights for legal processing of SNS accounts in bequests of digital assets, and examines the identity of digital data in the future.

First, I outline the terms of service for various services centering on access rights to SNS accounts, take up German court cases (Facebook case), American RUFADAA (The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act), etc. Overview the situation.

Second, since the issue of the inheritance of the access right originates from the unipolar concentration of the data to the enterprise, it is discussed that the relation of the right concerning the data is converted to the self-sovereignty identity (SSI) by the combination of the idea of the SSI with respect to the attribution of the data, the approach of the social implementation of the SSI, and the system of data portability.

We have been researching and developing a system called “PROLEG” which incorporates “Yoken-jijitsu-ron.” This logically organizes the abstract facts necessary to allege or prove in each statute in civil procedure. In civil procedure, since there have already been quite formally logical arguments based on the theory above mentioned, only what we had to do was creating rule bases subject to the civil law books in regards to this theory. However, this implementation process means that this system can only correspond to civil procedure. Since criminal procedure is also a procedure in courts, and we discuss it using similar legal concepts, we believe that criminal procedure, what we call “Yoken-jijitsu-ron” of Japanese criminal codes, is also able to be created and incorporated into “PROLEG for criminal law.” In the courses of developing “PROLEG for criminal law,” we faced and solved some implementational problems in relation to general parts of criminal law of which arguments do not generally exist in civil law. In this paper, we will explain PROLEG system and criminal law and how to combine two things by showing program codes and the visualization of output using some practically important cases. By doing this, we can see PROLEG is adaptable to criminal procedure and it can be used for EdTech and other purposes.

“The Cyber Attribution Problem” at the ICJ is caused not only by the anonymity of cyberattacks and the accessibility of evidence, but also by complex factors such as the nature of intelligence-based cyber attribution and national security interests. This article discusses the use of the “Information Asymmetry” mitigation theory in the Corfu Channel case as a means of mitigating the “The Cyber Attribution Problem” and examines the problems in its application.

As the viewing habits of people change due to the spread of broadband Internet access, as well as the development of high-quality distribution technology, they also come to expect the simultaneous distribution of television programs. However, in regard to this very concept, even if it is the same program, we may not watch it because of restrictions under the Copyright Act.

Therefore, in this paper, we again examine the legal interpretation of the Copyright Act and code of practices, and the application of Neighboring Rights (the rights to make available transmission) restrictions for IP multicast broadcasting, and consider the application of these restrictions on sound-image recording producers, etc., for the simultaneous distribution of television programs.

To begin with, we will review the definition of “broadcast” that differs between the Copyright Act and the Broadcasting Act, and then confirm the legal status of IP multicast broadcasting. Finally, we will analysis the legal framework and codes of practices regarding issues in the Copyright Act, with a focus on the three elements of “Timing”, “Area” and “Content” from the perspective of emerging media technology.

In determining inventive step, we submit a principle cited invention and identify the difference between a claimed invention and the principle cited invention (first step), and then examine whether a person having an ordinary skill in the prior art would easily reach at the claimed invention(the second step). As Internet search engine makes dramatic progress, it is reducing the difficulty of the first step, and as a result, the importance of the second step judgment increased. The first purpose of this paper is to clarify current state of the concept of “suggestion,” which is one of factors playing an important role in the second step. It is found that many cases in Japan use the concept of “Teach Away”(the opposite concept of suggestion) in addition to the concept of suggestion which combines a principle cited invention and a secondary cited invention. This paper also discussed the relationship between the second step and IT technology.

Legal informatic study used to analyze data and information which support legal education and legal practice and little discussion focuses on information about law in public sphere as media coverage or online discourse. In this article, I argue that persons acquire and use information about law in different contexts, to improving legal-information analysis. At first, referring the recent law-making process in criminal law, I show the popularization in information environment of law and the negative effects caused. Second, I signify the study of the information about law in public sphere from positivism perspective. In the end, I outline how the new theoretical vocabulary, theoretical model and analytic distinctions that I propose can be used to improve our study of legal information’s social effects.

It often happens that one party submits evidence containing personal data to the court in a trial. This article confirms the conventional arrangement of the provision of evidence containing personal data to the court and argues that it falls under Article 23(1)(2) of the Law and is lawful in relation to the interpretation of the text, the remedy under the law of procedure, the adequacy decision and the interpretation of European law.

There are many social discussions about AI, but the novelty of AI seems to be the ability to create intellectual creations on their own. Therefore, it is a big problem who the intellectual creation generated by this AI belongs to. In the Intellectual Property Promotion Plan 2017 and 2019, copyrights will occur when AI is used as a tool, while in the case of autonomous creation (AI creations) using AI, copyrights will not occur. However, the boundary between the two is ambiguous, and there is a need to determine who belongs to AI creations that do not cause copyrights from a viewpoint other than copyright law. This paper examines previous research based on the intellectual property promotion plan, considers them mainly from the viewpoint of incentives, and makes recommendations for the Intellectual Property Promotion Plan.