mytest

Hi Blog. Got a question from TtoT at The Community today that deserves answering. In these days of mass layoffs and people on unemployment insurance, apparently the welfare offices are able to call up relatives and check to see if applicants really are financially as badly off as they say. As the poster points out below, there are privacy issues involved. Anyone know more about this? If so, comments section. Thanks. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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I’ll state from the outset that I am in strange waters on this one,
but an acquaintance from years back that remembers our old group and
the help we offered rang me up a few hours ago and asked me an
interesting question. It has had me poking around the Net and
thinking very hard. Now I turn to y’all.

She and her husband have applied for seikatsuhogo, or welfare
assistance. I knew nothing about this, so I went to the Ministry of
Health, Labour, and Welfare website and found this
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/seikatsuhogo/seikatuhogo.html

Okay, so far so good. But here’s why she called me. It seems that
one of the requirements for receiving this welfare is that the local
government will call relatives and ask about their ability to help
this lady’s family. This seems to be a big problem. Her husband now
seems to be shamed into not applying for help.

But the reason she called me was because she is wondering about a
government agency calling a *relative* and essentially providing
private information, which is that this family is in serious
financial trouble and asking for help from the government.

I just don’t have a clue here, but something does feel odd here.
There must be some sort of regulations related to government workers
passing along information to outsiders. I mean those outside the
immdediate family. The first thing that comes to mind is how they
define *relative*. And why I put it in special marks in the previous
paragraph.

Do any of you know anything about this? Do any of you know where I
can find the regulations pertaining to government responsibility in
maintaining private information? Oddly enough, I can’t find a
government document outlining their regulations, but I assume that’s
just because of my poor Japanese.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
ENDS