Joint Press Release with the Personal Information Protection Commission
April 21, 2022
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Personal Information Protection Commission agreed to a declaration jointly signed on April 21 (Thu.), 2022 by the economies currently participating in the APEC CBPR System (including Japan) in order to expand the system with the goals of facilitating the free flow of personal data across borders on a wider scale, promoting interoperability between each country’s regulations, and more.
Expanding the CBPR System
The Cross Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) System certifies companies’ compliance with privacy rules related to protecting personal data across borders.
Until now, the CBPR System has been an APEC initiative, but they have agreed to the declaration to establish a new, independent forum (tentatively called Global CBPR) as more and more companies require certification from third-party organizations that they can securely transfer personal data across borders.
The new forum’s prospects
The economies participating in this new forum are those currently participating in the CBPR System, but they plan to welcome in non-APEC member countries in the future.
This new forum’s goals are to protect effective data privacy and promote interoperability between each country’s data protection rules.
Japan has tried various initiatives of developing a framework for the international flow of data. However, as company certifications are likely an effective way to materialize that framework, our goal is to use the Global CBPR Forum—being one such company certification system—as an effective tool in a wide array of countries and regions, such as Europe.
This new forum’s actual design, changeover procedures, and more will be decided at a later date.
