Japanese media reported that an official from Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) lost a government-issued mobile phone while traveling privately in China. The device contained important information related to nuclear security work, including contact details of personnel involved in confidential missions.
The incident occurred on 3 November. It is believed the official lost the phone during a security check at Shanghai airport. However, it took three days before the loss was realized. Despite efforts to coordinate with the airport, no trace of the phone was found. The NRA has not yet confirmed whether the data was accessed or leaked.
The smartphone is a "disaster prevention" device issued to senior officials to enable prompt responses to emergencies such as nuclear accidents or severe earthquakes. The data contained contact details of officers responsible for nuclear security, as well as maps and contacts of agencies involved in preventing terrorism and theft of radioactive materials. It also included personnel identification information normally classified as top secret to minimize security risks.
This incident comes at a time when the Japanese government is trying to revive its nuclear energy program, which has been halted since the Fukushima disaster in 2011. It is not the first case of negligence in Japan's nuclear sector; in 2023, officials at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant—the world's largest—left classified documents on a car roof, which were then blown away.
Also this week, Chubu Electric Power was found to have "selectively used partial data" to pass safety inspections, leading the NRA to suspend its approval process for reactor operations due to discovered falsification of critical inspection data.
The NRA has reported the incident to Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission and issued an order prohibiting officials from taking agency-issued smartphones abroad. It will conduct a strict review of internal regulations and enhance guidelines for carrying government devices overseas to prevent similar incidents in the future.