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Elementary school teacher under fire after selling students’ personal info online

28 Comments
By Scott Wilson, SoraNews24

Coming off the heels of last month, when a Tokyo middle school had students write down and turn in their social media passwords, recently there was another incident involving young students’ personal information getting leaked.

On Jan 29, the board of education in the town of Ichikawamisato, Yamanashi Prefecture announced that a male teacher in his 20s at a public elementary school gave away the personal information of 29 of the school’s 3rd and 4th grade students online. The information included students’ names, addresses, phone numbers, and more.

▼ A video reporting on the incident

According to the board of education, the teacher posted on Twitter on Jan 24 that he was “having money problems.” He then received a message from a “peer-to-peer lending” account that asked to purchase the personal information of students.

The teacher downloaded the student register from his computer, printed it, photographed it, then sent it as a message to the account. Three days later, the account posted the register publicly on Twitter, with all the information censored aside from the students’ seating numbers. The post also included the teacher’s name, a photo of his face, and the message, “The teacher who tried to sell personal information.”

While it hasn’t been yet confirmed if the leaked information has been used for anything nefarious, the teacher has admitted to not receiving any money in the exchange. He has been reported as saying, “I was having money problems, and I got suckered in by their offer. I’ve done something inexcusable to both the children and their parents and guardians.”

The teacher has been suspended starting on Jan 31 as the board of education determines what to do from here.

Japanese netizens were uniformly shocked by what happened:

“Disgusting….”

“Talk about luck of the draw with who your teacher is.”

“I want to know how much they offered him.”

“If a teacher is hard up enough to do this, I can’t imagine what people with access to more sensitive info might do.”

“Yeah, that’s almost the worst thing here. That a teacher’s salary is so low that they’d stoop to doing this.”

“I think this kind of thing is just more and more likely to happen from here on.”

“Don’t ‘determine what to do’ with him. Fire him. Revoke his teaching license.”

There are still many mysteries here, such as who exactly was running the account that contacted him, and what their goal was in this whole situation. It doesn’t seem like it was anything perverted or dangerous for now, but we’ll see how the story unfolds from here.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun via My Game News Flash

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

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-- Teacher disciplined for drinking alcohol during class in Japan

-- Board of education suspends Japanese teacher who stockpiled 750 pairs of panties at school

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

28 Comments
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Elementary school teacher under fire after selling students’ personal info online

Under fire? He should be on his way to jail!

7 ( +12 / -5 )

The teacher has been suspended starting on Jan 31 as the board of education determines what to do from here.

If the BOE does not ban him for life from teaching, parents should be alarmed to say the least. He is not fit to work with children.

This scum should be facing serious criminal charges. Horrible to think about the sickos who would be after anonymous children's addresses.

2 ( +9 / -7 )

Under fire? He should be fired!

2 ( +6 / -4 )

He got took! Immoral idiots shouldn't be in the classroom, he should be in jail.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

The teacher has been suspended starting on Jan 31 as the board of education determines what to do from here.

What is there to determine? He broke a number of laws along the way, and firing him and filing charges with the police SHOULD be the only thing to "determine" here.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

 the teacher has admitted to not receiving any money in the exchange

good one. Idiot.

never ship before payment

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

Lots to digest here, why are elementary students using Social Media? Why did they need to give schools their account information? And why is this guy not in jail?

-7 ( +2 / -9 )

Suspended?

He should be in jail, full stop. What kind of disgusting person would pay for the personal information of elementary school children? It could only be for reasons that none of us even dare speaking about, obviously. Suspended?? For putting small children at risk like that? Pure insanity.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

If the teacher was using his real name in twitter I would think that somebody he knows was already suspicious of him and threw him a bait to see if he would do the crime. If that is the case the leaked info may be safe.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Was he a teacher of virology???

-12 ( +0 / -12 )

I'd be interested to know who set him up and what their motives were. Still, no excuses for the teacher's "lack of judgement". What did he think the students info would be used for? In his 20's so plenty of time to find a more suitable employment.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

NorthernlifeToday  10:13 am JST

Wow lots of people seem to support him on here thats kind of scary..

"Lots of people"? Which ones? I don't see lots of support for him, plenty of the opposite.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

under fire?

sure?

why not arrested yet?

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Northernlife..

Wow lots of people seem to support him on here thats kind of scary..

No, there isn't a single poster supporting the teacher. Try reading the posts again!

0 ( +5 / -5 )

under fire??! You mean he's getting fired don't you? Fired and carted off to jail for endangering the lives of his students. SMDH

0 ( +1 / -1 )

So which post is supporting the teacher?

The ones saying "jail him"? "throw the book at him"? "fire him?"

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Inexcusable. But so is the guy who doxxed him, plus the children. Both are equally guilty.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Mmmh, try paying the teachers something, that might help to prevent such issues to occur. Paying nothing and firing them isn’t the best choice when we already can read news that there aren’t enough teachers available, lacking in thousands. lol

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

Sounds like he was baited by someone trying to get him fired.

What a dummy.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Well, his financial situation just got a lot worse!!!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

I pity this teacher, but what he did was unacceptable. He can trade many things but why his student's profile? Sounds fishy in the first place for asking the students information? If he has friends to seek for advice I'm sure he wouldn't do that thing? Internet is such a danger to anyone be wise to use it.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Some people don't seem to understand that in this case "The teacher downloaded the student register from his computer" and another teacher altogether, at a different time, "had students write down and turn in their social media passwords". Two entirely different incidents involving two entirely different teachers. Learn to read and comprehend what you read!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Money problems, sure when going out to snack bar and throwing money at women every weekend, with a slary like his he should not be having money problem unless he doesn't know how to manage it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Lots of people"? Which ones? I don't see lots of support for him, plenty of the opposite.

No, there isn't a single poster supporting the teacher. Try reading the posts again!

So which post is supporting the teacher?

You need to look at the up/down voting on the various posts. There is obviously quite a bit of support for this teacher, albeit not as much as the disdain. But, certainly more than he deserves.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Inexcusable. But so is the guy who doxxed him, plus the children. Both are equally guilty.

Incorrect. They are not equally guilty.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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