Employee Loses Phone Containing Confidential Data in China

Incident at a Shanghai Airport

An employee of Japan's nuclear safety agency lost a work phone containing sensitive information during a personal trip to China, according to Japanese media reports. The phone held confidential contact details of personnel involved in nuclear security operations at the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA).

The agency could not confirm whether the data had been compromised, the reports state. This incident comes amid Japan's efforts to revitalize its nuclear energy program, which has been suspended for over a decade. All nuclear reactors in Japan were shut down in 2011 following a magnitude 9 earthquake and a massive tsunami that caused a nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant.

The NRA was established after the Fukushima disaster to oversee nuclear safety, including the restart of reactors in the country. It is believed the NRA employee lost the phone on November 3 during a security screening at a Shanghai airport. They noticed the phone was missing three days later and, despite checking at the airport, were unable to retrieve it.

According to the Asahi newspaper, the NRA provides certain employees with smartphones to facilitate prompt responses to emergencies. The affected NRA department is responsible for protecting nuclear materials against threats such as theft and terrorism at facilities nationwide, according to Kyodo News. The NRA reported the incident to Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission and warned employees against taking work phones abroad, as per local media.

This is not the first security incident involving Japanese nuclear officials. In 2023, an employee at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power plant in the world, lost a stack of documents after placing them on a car and driving away. In late November, another employee at the same plant mismanaged confidential documents by making copies and then locking them in an office. This week, Chubu Electric Power, an operator of nuclear power plants in central Japan, stated it may have preferentially used selected data during safety inspections at its nuclear plant. The NRA subsequently suspended Chubu's review for restarting reactors, citing “fabrication of critical inspection data,” reported Reuters.