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Teacher accidentally leaks names, health records of students on school website 

27 Comments

A junior high school in Kobe is under fire after a teacher accidentally leaked private information, including students’ names and health records, on the school’s website on Wednesday, the local board of education revealed.

According to representatives of the Kobe Board of Education, the incident occurred at around 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday, when a health education teacher at a public junior high school in the city’s Nada Ward, was uploading a notice addressed to students’ guardians in relation to an upcoming swimming class. The teacher accidentally uploaded a file containing the personal information, including names, students’ health conditions and past records, of 24 students who required a special health warning ahead of participating in the swimming class.

The file stayed live for approximately 50 minutes until parents noticed and contacted the school. It was then deleted accordingly, the Board of Education said.

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27 Comments
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How do these imbeciles get their jobs?

-9 ( +7 / -16 )

Hard to believe a bureaucratic mistake is newsworthy. Over here, news is big when our teachers have affairs with the student

3 ( +8 / -5 )

How do these imbeciles get their jobs?

It's an honest mistake. A big mistake granted, but not one done with malicious intent. Nothing to be fired for, a warning would suffice.

1 ( +13 / -11 )

Japanese are relatively incompetent at computers when compared to most countries. A lot of teachers here are barely able to use the internet, and they have little idea how it works. This was almost certainly an innocent mistake made by one of the many internet-illiterate teachers here.

If teachers are going to be handling sensitive information, they should first demonstrate basic competence and awareness of privacy policies. A course should be offered for this.

2 ( +9 / -7 )

Why are they concealing the name of the school, hope it is not my son’s school and his data is not among the leaked because If it is , the usual bowing won’t be enough as I will raise hell at the school tomorrow. The handling of private data in this country is really deplorable and in most cases they Want to know everything from your age to your sleeping position when all that is needed is the name and address thats why I have no trust in mynumber and I have not bothered applying for the card since I received the notification last November.

8 ( +11 / -3 )

Strangerland: "A big mistake granted, but not one done with malicious intent. Nothing to be fired for, a warning would suffice."

Yeah, you're right. A simple apology and bow, a slap on the shoulder with an "Oh, you silly!" and then the same when the next does it, and the next, and the next, and the next. I don't think it's worth being fired, but I think the parents have every right to sue, and the school and board every right to fine and/or suspend without pay. Not a day goes by when you don't read about kids hacking the system, or morons leaking private info, including the other day when the entire ILLEGAL profiling of Japan's Muslim population was leaked online and downloaded more than 10,000 times including names, addresses, names of mosques, etc. Keeping information in Japan is like storing liquid in a strainer, and until there are more severe punishments nothing will change. Since it involves students with special needs who knows how it could be used if the information was seen and copied or downloaded. So, maybe not firing, but surely something more serious than a warning is necessary.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

Why are they concealing the name of the school,

Streisand Effect. If they name it in public -- and they really shouldn't have even given the city it was in -- other kids, particularly technically proficient ones, might go looking for that file in hopes that it has been shared somewhere, and then the 24 kids whose data was leaked might get bullied even more than now.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

drlucifer,

It is my understanding that you already have a "my#" assigned, like it or not.

Am I wrong? I also have no confidence that this means any of my data is private, including any bank accounts, Japan Post savings, income, bank transfers, and whatever. Apparently there has been a strong uptick in home safe sales.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

The word 'idiot' springs to mind straight away. After a decade and a half of teaching in over 40 different schools from junior high to college and university I'm surprised half of the teachers are not in full time therapy. I also wonder how some of them manage to dress themselves every day, some of which cannot. I can only feel pity for the students who have to deal with these emotionally unstable and socially underdeveloped loons.

-6 ( +5 / -11 )

@Disillusioned

The word 'disillusioned' springs to my mind. You label half the people you've met in your professional life as needing professional mental help? A little unfair to the general populace and a little conceited in your own mind perhaps? Personally I've met mostly wonderful and dedicated teachers. Too bad this one made a pretty awful error.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Do J-schools still measure students'....... y'know, measurements?

Why would anyone leak those?

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

It is my understanding that you already have a "my#" assigned, like it or not.

Only illegals will not have one.

But lucifer mentioned applying for the mynumber card - this does not come automatically. Everyone has the number, but getting a card with the number on it is optional/voluntary.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Since it involves students with special needs who knows how it could be used if the information was seen and copied or downloaded. So, maybe not firing, but surely something more serious than a warning is necessary.

The teacher should be docked a month's pay, and be put on cleaning duty for the staff toilet for an entire month. That would suffice.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Japanese are relatively incompetent at computers when compared to most countries.

The handling of private data in this country is really deplorable

Precisely what evidence do you have for this claim?

I just did a Google search on “data leak school.” Scores of examples for the US came up, some involving highly sensitive data for in some cases tens of thousands of students. Some of these leaks were in the last few weeks. In 2015 the US federal government had two major leaks that exposed the records of 21.5 million people. These leaks had national security implications.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/07/09/hack-of-security-clearance-system-affected-21-5-million-people-federal-authorities-say/

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

Japanese are relatively incompetent at computers when compared to most countries. A lot of teachers here are barely able to use the internet, and they have little idea how it works. This was almost certainly an innocent mistake made by one of the many internet-illiterate teachers here.

When you still have teachers that don't know how to use Word or Excel and insist on using Ichitaro it's easier to understand their incompetence. Doesnt make it right, just commenting on the idiocy of many "teachers".

2 ( +4 / -2 )

It is not uncommon to find Japanese English teachers in the 40+ age group still making listening tests on audio cassette and using Windoze XP. These same teachers are totally amazed that I can use my smart phone to record my voice and then, edit it and burn it to a CD. Yeah, people are people and they are only human, but that is no excuse for ignorance because ignorance is not an excuse. It is a handicap!

1 ( +6 / -5 )

bullfighterJun. 30, 2016 - 07:58PM JST

Precisely what evidence do you have for this claim?

Some of us work for Japanese companies and no how out-dated Japanese are at integrating computers into the day to day affairs of the Japanese office.

To give you 2 examples, which most people who have worked in a Japanese office in japan, will verify.

Last year my company, who employ 70,000 Japanese, finally decided to upgrade the OS from Windows XP... after we had been hacked by the Chinese.

Everything in my company is still done with a hanko and intercompany e-mails are as rare as a Bengal tiger. Why? Because anyone above "Bucho" 部長 is not younger than 55 and is totally lost using a computer.

Is that good enough for you?

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Some of us work for Japanese companies

But not foreign ones, it would appear. If XP is good enough for the US Navy, why would you upgrade? (That's a joke, btw.)

I can quite believe that many Japanese teachers are not competent with computers. But I also know that teachers in the USA struggle too. I make software for them, and frequently receive requests from school districts to dumb things down so that teachers can cope.

I guess everyone's experience differs. I was lucky enough to work for 12 years at a company in Japan that made computers central to its operations from the early 1980s. Before I worked there, I'd never touched a computer, so I was impressed with the level of automation. (Automation back then involved carrying huge stacks of perforated printouts to clients.)

When you still have teachers that don't know how to use Word or Excel

And here's me trying to encourage teachers not to use Word and Excel. What's wrong with Ichitaro, by the way?

4 ( +5 / -1 )

albaleo And here's me trying to encourage teachers not to use Word and Excel. What's wrong with Ichitaro, by the way?

How about Hanako ? , forgotten memories of the past. Reminds me of justsystems having the J-market for word processing locked up and the almighty microsoft struggling big time. The lack of an office suite was the undoing of Justsystem `and its eventual extinction from J-computers. I prefer ichitaro to word especially the method of drawing lines and having words wrap easily around lines.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

@Disillusioned What's a "CD"? Is that a new streaming, VoIP, or cloud service?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Using technology is fine, but sometimes when I attend one of those WebEx (WebCast) meetings. People just wasted many minutes to get it to work. They should have set it up prior to the meeting rather than wasting everyone else's time to try to figure things out.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Japanese are relatively incompetent at computers when compared to most countries.

For example like the US, where personal information is 'accidentally' leaked all the time?

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

@Nemrut

that that would make both statements true, one doesn't cancel the other

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Oops! I attached 582qvve8IUB.io.772b871 INSTEAD of 582qwe8IUB.io.772b871 --my bad, y'all.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

In the US, it usually originates from more malicious intentions. Here in Japan, where they most definitely ARE well behind the bell curve when it comes to using computers, leaks usually come from ineptitude.

Besides that, why is it everyone's default to compare Japan to the US Every. Single. Time a negative point is raised about Japan? Newsflash, there are more than two nations in the world, and many of them are doing things sooooo sooo much better than these two.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

In the US, it usually originates from more malicious intentions

That also, and plenty of computer incompetence in the US at all levels of govt/institutions resulting in leaked information.

there are more than two nations in the world, and many of them are doing things sooooo sooo much better than these two.

Which ones are those? Do they have a population of more than 1M, 10M?

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

And yet we're supposed to believe the My Number data will be handled securely...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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