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Nuclear safety phone vanishes at Shanghai airport
An employee of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) reported losing a work-issued smartphone containing confidential staff contacts while traveling privately in China, local media said on Wednesday.
Details of the incident
The phone went missing on 3 November during a security check at Shanghai's airport. The employee noticed its absence three days later and searched the airport without success.
The device was one of several issued by the NRA to enable rapid emergency responses, according to the Asahi newspaper.
Data at risk
The lost phone held private contact information for personnel involved in nuclear security operations. The NRA told reporters it could not confirm whether the data had been accessed or copied.
Kyodo News reported that the affected department is responsible for safeguarding nuclear materials against theft and terrorism at Japanese facilities.
Agency response
The NRA notified Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission about the loss and instructed all staff to avoid carrying work phones abroad.
Broader safety concerns
The incident follows a string of security lapses within Japan's nuclear sector. In 2023, a worker at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant-the world's largest nuclear facility-lost documents after leaving them on a car roof and driving away.
Last November, another Kashiwazaki-Kariwa employee was found to have improperly duplicated and stored sensitive documents in a desk drawer.
This week, Chubu Electric Power admitted potential data manipulation during safety inspections for its nuclear reactors. The NRA suspended its review of Chubu's restart applications, citing "fabrication of critical inspection data," Reuters said.
Context
Japan shut down all nuclear reactors after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, which was triggered by a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami. The NRA was established afterward to oversee reactor restarts and enforce stricter safety standards.
The country has since been working to revive its nuclear energy program, which remains stalled more than a decade later.
