Japan Enacts Law to Punish Computer Virus Creators

Tokyo, June 17 (Jiji Press)--Japan's parliament enacted a set of bills Friday to punish computer virus creation even if no damage has been inflicted, as part of an effort to strengthen crackdown against cybercrimes.
One of the bills calls for a revision to the Penal Code, which currently allows criminal complaints such as property destruction only after material damage is caused by computer viruses.
The bills were adopted by a majority vote at a plenary meeting of the House of Councillors, with support coming from both the ruling and opposition camps.
Under the revised Penal Code, those who create and supply computer viruses without any reasonable excuse would face a prison sentence of up to three years or fines of up to 500,000 yen.
Acquisition and storage of viruses will be subject to an imprisonment of two years or less, or fines of 300,000 yen or less.
As the revised law enables punishments in the stages of creating computer viruses, its enforcement, scheduled for July, is expected to be effective in forestalling damage to large groups of computer users.
At the same time, there is concern over privacy violations that may be caused by abuse of investigative authority.
Also under the revised Penal Code, law-enforcement authorities can punish those who send indecent images to an unspecified number of people via e-mail. Violators would face an imprisonment of up to two years or fines of up to 2.5 million yen.
Among related legislation, the revised Code of Criminal Procedure allows investigators to ask telecommunications companies to save communication logs for up to 60 days. It covers records of communication dates and identities of message senders and receivers, but not the content of messages.