Today, we are living in an age of data-driven economy. This paper is aimed to evaluate the issues on the data economy-related policy agenda facing Japan. Personal data are characterized by non-rivalry in consumption and externalities which differentiate from other goods. It is extremely difficult to assess the value of personal data because of the fact that personal data are often provided by individuals in exchange for digital services rendered by platformers at zero price under the information asymmetry between the two parties. Data can also be considered as social goods or common goods or public goods. In order to utilize data for solving social issues, it is beneficial to treat data as common goods or public goods.

Data provide the useful information for firms to choose the optimal technology, while at the same time they are used as input to create ideas or knowledge, both of them promote the productivity of the economy. While widespread dissemination of data contributes to improving the efficiency of the economy, it is needed to adequately protect the privacy and firms’ secrecy.

The first issue on policy agenda in Japan is how to find the solution of trade-off between the free flow of data and privacy protection. Based on the preposition that the ownership of personal data belongs to individuals in a democratic society, it is desirable to let the individuals, instead of the platformers, to choose the balance between privacy protection in digital service consumption. We need not only make clear that the individuals are entitled to control their personal data, but also establish rules on the data portability as well as interoperability. These rules are essential for facilitating the function of personal data trust banks as information intermediary. In addition, the government needs to provide the guideline on the data sharing among big tech companies.

The second issue is how to establish the arrangements between countries to facilitate the free flow of personal data across borders under the requirement of national security. The European Court of Justice made judgement that the “Privacy Shield Principle” to secure the free flow of personal data between the EU and the US violates the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. The core problem lies in the different treatment on the balance between the privacy protection and the national security. If the US and the EU fail to achieve the agreement on the issue, the world will be divided into three “digital economic zones”, which are represented by the US “notice and consent” system, the EU’s privacy based system and China’s central state control system.

The basis for considering data policy is the idea of how to perceive the value of data and what kind of data has economic value. In general, just because organization have a large amount of digital data does not mean that you can generate profits from that data, and only when many conditions are met will it lead to profits and competitiveness of the organization, and will lead to competitiveness in the industry. Designing protection and incentive systems of data, based on these requirements is important for establishing a data policy.From this point of view, this paper focuses on the economic value of data, presents the results of empirical analysis, and considers the value of annotation data as a concrete case study. Based on the results of the analysis on these studies, we examined legal protection system of data.

In recent years, corporate markup, that is, the level of price against marginal cost, has continued to rise in Europe and the United States. On the other hand, the markup of Japanese companies does not show a noticeable increase. A characteristic of markup in Europe and the United States is that companies with particularly high markups are further increasing their markups and expanding their market shares. And as the source of such a tendency, it can be pointed out that there are companies that make effective use of data assets. It can be seen that the utilization of data assets makes it possible to differentiate from other companies, provide products and services that better suit the tastes of customers, enhance markup, and contribute to expanding market share. Data assets such as transaction data with customers will be accumulated, and utilization will bring about further increase in markups.

In this paper, based on the above awareness of the issues, while treating the data held by companies as one of the important input factors in corporate activities, we assess the impact of data assets such as customer information and transaction records on the profitability of Japanese companies.

In this paper, we have examined the question "Can personal data be treated as goods?" and we have summarized the challenges of treating personal data as a good.

Although we can recognize the economic value of personal data, it is not clear how to calculate the value of personal data. In addition, individuals may not be able to correctly evaluate the compensation for providing personal data, and their awareness of the compensation may prevent them from making use of their personal data. Furthermore, there is a difference between the view of personal data as a good and the purpose of the Personal Information Protection Law.

At present, mechanisms such as the Information Bank are being developed to make use of personal data. In order for these schemes to be useful, policies are needed to support individuals and businesses' awareness of the value of personal data.

In addition, personal data has public good characteristics and externalities. it is necessary to consider what mechanisms will be used to promote the use of personal data.

With the progress of digitalization, the importance of cybersecurity is increasing, and various reports on the human scale of cybersecurity personnel have been made in Japan. These reports do not clarify how much to estimate the cost and duration of training related to the development of cybersecurity personnel. This may be one of the reasons why companies and local governments are hesitating to train cybersecurity personnel.

In this paper, I try to calculate the training cost and period related to the development of cybersecurity personnel. In the calculation, not only the cost and period of the training course are estimated, but also the in-house cost, training interval, and continuous maintenance cost incurred because the personnel participating in the training are not engaged in their original duties. At the same time, I try to calculate the training cost and period according to the size of the company.

Specifically, in using the "training cost / period calculation model according to the training procedure", I estimated the training cost / period considering the in-house cost and training interval.

And in using the "human resources composition model according to the company size", I set a model according to the scale and calculated the training cost and period related to human resource development for each company scale. In addition, I compared the estimation results with external education and training costs related to human resource development in the IT field for each company size which was reported in the "2017 Information Processing Survey" by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

This paper was able to present a proposal for the concept and method of calculating training costs and periods related to the development of cybersecurity personnel, which was not presented in various reports so far.

Value creation with digital data receives much attention as a source of innovation as the digitization of industries and economic systems advances. Data exchange ecosystems have emerged to facilitate data exchange and trade among heterogeneous actors, including private firms, non-profit organizations, public sectors, and individuals. Although the importance of nurturing data exchange ecosystems is well recognized, there are limited studies on developing and designing such ecosystems since there are many complex problems that need to be solved, such as legal, policy, and technology issues. Moreover, little is known about mechanisms behind data exchange platforms including the characteristics of data and the relationships between data while many discussions on business and technological aspects of data exchange ecosystems exist. Therefore, this paper unpacks data exchange mechanisms by analyzing the data combination networks on a digital platform. Our network analysis identifies 1) the characteristics of highly linkable data, 2) the conditions that facilitate data combination, and 3) structural characteristics of data networks on a digital platform. The paper demonstrates that variables related to “time” and “place” in the data facilitate data combination between diverse datasets. The paper also shows that the mixture of sensitive and shareable data increases the likelihood of link between the data from different fields. Furthermore, the structural characteristics of the data network (locally dense and global sparse) indicate the possibility of combining diverse data by filling the structural holes of sparse networks. Implications for developing data exchange platforms and promoting the data economy are discussed based on the findings of the paper.

Personal Data Trust Bank is one of the measures to solve the issues related to the utilization of data and to promote the distribution and utilization of data. Personal Data Trust Bank is an organization that acts as an intermediary between data providers and data users. It allows individuals to manage their data, and provides data to third parties based on instructions and conditions specified by the individuals.

However, these services are still in their infancy and they are not spreading. The reasons for this are pointed out that consumers feel “anxiety” and “cannot feel the benefits” of these services.

This study quantitatively examines the determinants of consumers' evaluation for Personal Data Trust Bank and considers measures to promote the spread of Personal Data Trust Bank and to accelerate data distribution and utilization in the future. For the analysis, we regressed the survey data of 2,200 people who use at least one of the 10 applications in the 10 fields targeted.

The results of the analysis revealed four things. First, males tend to be more positive for using Personal Data Trust Bank and older age tends to be more negative, particularly age has a relatively strong effect. Second, Internet literacy, data literacy, and the awareness that own data is being collected all increase the evaluation for Personal Data Trust Bank. Third, there is a greater need for Personal Data Trust Bank that specialize in specific areas than for comprehensive Personal Data Trust Bank. Fourth, the most common reason for wanting to use Personal Data Trust Bank is the expectation of benefits, "I think I can get more convenient services," while the most common reason for not wanting to use Personal Data Trust Bank is the misuse or leakage of data and concerns about privacy violations, such as "I think there is an increased risk of my data being leaked (out)”.

Two policy implications for promoting the spread of Personal Data Trust Bank can be derived from the above results. First, focusing on targets (consumers) who tend to accept Personal Data Trust Bank, and data which is more needed. Second, improving literacy education about the Internet and data.

This paper focuses on privacy issues about personal data held by third parties in search for criminal investigations. Development of information technologies enable the collection and storage of enormous volumes of information. Data held by third parties would be a curse to serious privacy concern because it could often be provided to investigating authorities while data subjects do not recognize it. The aim of this paper is to compare the relevant laws and regulations about privacy and investigation search on personal data held by third parties in the US, the EU and Japan, and reach a suggestion for appropriate solution.

Wireless systems represented by cellphones, WiFi, and satellite communication have already become indispensable part of the socio-economic activities of modern society. Due to the peculiarities of radio waves, there are many restrictions imposed on country and industry compared with wired communication. Only when every country around the world complies with internationally binding rules can the proper and stable use of radio waves without harmful interference be maintained. These rules for radiocommunications are compiled into the Radio Regulations (RR), which is revised when a new system such as the 5th generation mobile communication system(5G) will be introduced.

This revision is decided at the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), which is held every three to four years. Government, carriers and manufacturers of each country may aim to establish rules including technology or operational rule advantageous to their own country or company, or standard that can sufficiently protect existing system. The deliberation at the WRC is getting complicated by the remarkable technological development in the radiocommunication field, the congestion of frequency resources due to the increase in the number of radio stations and their types, and the speculation of each country other than these technological elements, and conflicts between regions, countries and stakeholders who have interests are becoming more and more severe.

This paper analyzes three specific conflict structures between new and conventional systems, between neighboring countries and between regional groups as typical structures of terrestrial service vs. space service that occur in the process of RR revision, and clarifies the way of thinking in agreeing on international rules and the status of its improvement. It also discusses future issues and directions based on these results.

The Act Partially Amending the Telecommunications Business Act and the Act on Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, etc., which was passed in the 201th Japanese ordinary diet session, has mainly three aims; (1) the act maintains the articles regarding cases when foreign corporations, etc., operate telecommunications businesses, (2) it enables Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation (NTT East and West) to provide telephone services by means of the telecommunication facilities of other telecommunications carriers, (3) it maintains the articles concerning regulations on systems for interlocking directorate within the telecommunication carriers that install Category I designated telecommunication facilities. The purpose of this act is to respond to changes in social structures, such as the globalization of the telecommunications market and population decline, and to secure the users’ interests related to telecommunication services.

Specifically, as for (1), this maintains the articles regarding the obligation to designate domestic representatives, etc., at the time of registration/notification. Also, it maintains articles regarding the publication system in the case of the Telecommunications Business Act violations. The background of these is to strengthen the effectiveness of discipline for foreign corporations, etc., due to a rapid domestic usage expansion of platform services provided by foreign corporations, etc.

As for (2), this maintains the legal system enabling NTT East and West to provide telephone services by means of the facilities of other telecommunications carriers, only if the necessary conditions are met, and with the approval of the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communication. The background of this is due to expectations that a deficit trend at telephone services provided by NTT East and West will deteriorate further due to the rapid progress of population decline.