The government on Tuesday passed a bill requiring companies to obtain users’ consent when transmitting personal data, such as internet browsing history, to third parties.

The bill, approved at a Cabinet meeting, requires consent where it is clear that data can be traced back to individuals by third parties.

The bill to revise the personal information protection law comes after Recruit Career Co., the operator of employment information website Rikunabi, sold data predicting the chances that students seeking refuse informal job offers. The data was based on personal information such as internet browsing history.

The bill also makes it easier for individuals to demand that companies stop using their data. Under applicable laws, users can only request that the use of their personal information be stopped or deleted if there is fault on the part of the company, even when the data was acquired fraudulently.

The review allows users to demand that the use of personal data be discontinued when their personal rights and interests are likely to be harmed, for example when the data is stored even after the company has finished using it for the declared purposes. .

Elsewhere, the bill calls for the pseudonymization of data, in which names and other personal information are replaced with markers.

The use of the technology will be limited to internal use in companies, for example for research and development. It will be exempted from having to respond to user requests for companies to stop using their data, encouraging innovation within companies.

Penalties for failing to comply with warnings issued by the government’s Personal Information Protection Commission will be increased, with the upper limit of fines for companies being raised to 100 million yen from the current cap of 300,000 yen.