Little has been written with regards to the meaning and the purview of “secrecy” as stipulated in Paragraph 2, Article 21 of the Constitution of Japan. In my view, it should be understood that secrecy should be viewed objectively regardless of the intentions of the communicating parties (senders and receivers). It is also worth noting that secrecy matters only between public authorities or communications service providers and communicating parties. Thus, the concept of secrecy arises based on the trust that communications users generally have in them, and is irrelevant in relation to third parties that are unrelated to the communication. In this regard, the notion of secrecy is clearly differentiated from that of privacy. Therefore, it is not necessarily appropriate to interpret the implications of “secrecy of communications” solely as a protection of privacy. In other words, protection of secrecy should be understood as encompassing various safeguards instituted by legal frameworks, including privacy protection, which should be guaranteed by law under the Constitution. In these safeguards, not only protection of privacy but also other elements such as security of communications should be ensured by properly-established communications institutions so that the general public may use communications channels with sufficient safety and reliability. Finally, some theories suggest a distinction between secrecy of communication's content and that of its metadata such as telephone numbers and records on communications dates. However, these theories are not appropriate given that communication's content and metadata are indivisible and are interrelated.
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