JapanAct on Development of an Environment that Provides Safe and Secure Internet Use for Young People, carrier and device filtering duties
Act No. 79 of 2008, Arts. 2, 13-19
In force since .
An age-appropriate design code rule binding private bodies.
- Criminal exposure
- No
- Private right of action
- No
- Enforcement body
- no enforcement body or administrative order power is created by this Act
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Applies to mobile phone and PHS carriers, sellers of mobile handsets, fixed-line internet connection providers, manufacturers of internet-connectable devices, and developers of software that directly controls such a device's operation; a young person is anyone under 18.
- Carriers: before concluding a mobile phone or PHS internet-connection contract, confirm whether the counterparty is a young person and, if not, whether the actual device user is.
- Carriers: provide the internet connection conditional on use of a youth-harmful-information filtering service whenever the contracting party or device user is a young person, unless the young person's guardian opts out; sellers of covered mobile handsets must implement filtering-enabled measures on the same conditional basis.
- Fixed-line internet connection providers: supply filtering software or a filtering service on request from any user.
- Device manufacturers: build in, or otherwise ease the use of, filtering software before selling an internet-connectable device.
- Developers of software that directly controls an internet-connectable device's operation: make best efforts to build in, or otherwise ease the use of, filtering software.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
What it reaches
Age threshold
18
Covered services
mobile phone and PHS internet connection services; general fixed-line internet connection services; internet-connectable device manufacture and sale; software directly controlling an internet-connectable device's operation
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Article 13 requires a mobile carrier or its agent to confirm whether the contracting party or the handset user is under 18, Article 15 to supply filtering service and Article 16 to enable filtering on a handset sold to a minor, and none of them names a record of the confirmation, a retention period or a regulator's power to demand one. Article 23, outside the articles this row cites, asks a specified server administrator to endeavour to create and keep a record of the measures it takes to prevent minors viewing harmful information; it is an effort duty on a different party and is not borrowed here. The reporting power in Article 27 reaches only registered filtering-promotion bodies.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
A person is a young person (seishonen) under this Act if under 18. Before concluding a mobile phone or PHS internet-connection service contract, the carrier must confirm whether the counterparty is a young person and, if not, whether the actual device user is (Art. 13).
The carrier must then provide the internet connection conditional on use of a youth-harmful-information filtering service whenever the contracting party or device user is a young person, unless the young person's guardian opts out (Art. 15), and a seller of a covered mobile handset must implement filtering-enabled measures on the same conditional basis (Art. 16).
A general (fixed-line) internet connection provider must supply filtering software or a filtering service on request from any user (Art. 17). A manufacturer of an internet-connectable device must build in or otherwise ease the use of filtering software before selling the device (Art. 18), and a developer of software that directly controls such a device's operation must make a best-efforts attempt to the same end (Art. 19). The Act carries no penalty, fine, or administrative-order provision for a violation of any of these duties.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app serves under-18s.
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