Amagasaki mayor apologizes after USB flash drives with 460,000 residents found

Amagasaki Mayor Kazumi Inamura apologizes at a regular news conference on June 23 and said that we should have been more careful in the transfer of data. She pledges to take measures to prevent a recurrence. On June 24th, the Osaka prefectural police said that USB devices containing personal information of 460,000 residents in Amagasaki were found by Kumiko Nakatsuka AMAGASAKI.

The officers said the devices were found in the compound of an apartment building in Suita, Osaka Prefecture.

A man in his 40 s reported to police that he had lost a bag containing the USB flash drives on June 22, according to the police.

The man works for a company that was subcontractted by the Kansai regional branch of Biprogy Inc. in Osaka to offer COVID 19 relief subsidies to households exempt from the residence tax on behalf of the city government.

The devices also contain city residents names, postal addresses, birthdates, how much they pay in residence taxes, and bank account information of households receiving child benefits or livelihood protection benefits.

The employees took the devices from the municipality's information center to transfer the data.

After completing the data transfer, the employee went out drinking alcohol for about three hours in a restaurant while carrying the USB storage devices and fell asleep on the street on his way home. He later realized that the bag containing the devices was missing.

About 30 police officers searched the route he might have taken from the restaurant on the morning of June 24, about 30 police officers said. They found the bag with the devices inside at noon in the apartment compound about 1 kilometer from the restaurant.

The city government said the data was encrypted or password-protected.

It will investigate to see if any information was leaked to the authorities.