This Week in Japan

Softbank Corp and Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, are joining forces to set up flying 5G stations using balloons and aircrafts. Both Softbank’s HAPSMobile and Alphabet’s Loon have been trying to fly network equipment in the stratosphere to provide 5G technologies and high speed Internet to places where grounded towers cannot access.  

The Eugenics Protection Law gave the government the authority to sterilize individuals who were “at risk” of producing “poor-quality descendants,” which included those with disabilities (mental and physical), those with mental illness, or hereditary disorders. The law was in effect from 1948 to 1993 and during that period about 25,000 people were sterilized, 16,500 of which did not give consent for the procedure. 

The Personal Information Protection Commission is discussing and amendment to the Private Information Protection Law that was implemented in 2017. Currently IT giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook are able to collect personal data like birth dates, names and address without the consumer’s consent and use it for marketing purposes. With consumers becoming more anxious about personal data privacy, the government is considering the option of “the right to be forgotten,” which allows consumers to choose to remove previously uploaded images and search results related to them; a right that already exists in Europe. 

Since the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima prefecture in 2011, the prefecture’s agricultural exports were crippled. But in the fiscal 2018, agricultural exports from the region hit a record high for two years in a row. The main exports of rice, pears, and apples were shipped to countries in Southeast Asia.