Tag: privacy | RocketNews24

You, Me, And a Tanuki is a weekly featured blog run by Michelle, a Californian who is currently one of only two foreigners living in Chibu, a tiny fishing village on one of the Oki islands in Japan. Check back every Saturday for a new post or read more on her website here!

From my experience, there is very little privacy in Japan compared to the US. You want to take some time off during the summer break to go on a vacation? You better write down where you’re going and for how long so that information can be distributed to not only your boss, but everyone in the office. Make a big mistake at work? You’re purposely going to get scolded about it in front of your coworkers. A close family member passed away? You’re going to have to make a public announcement about it whether you want to or not (at least that’s what I was forced to do at work when my grandmother passed away and I had to suddenly go back to America).

The oddest invasion of privacy that I have ever encountered here in Japan is always during the yearly health examinations. Since I’m a public worker, once a year I am required to have a full physical. This sounds awesome, I get a free health check-up and I don’t even need to make an appointment.

Wrong, it is awful.

Remember the first time you zoomed in on Google maps and realised that you could see actual photos of your street? When you discovered that you could take a virtual stroll down pretty much any road in the world, or check out the street in front of that new apartment you just spotted an ad for?

While all of the images taken by Google’s magical multi-direction photo car were technically taken on public property, there have been numerous complaints over “invasions of privacy” as, in the process of snapping the world’s streets, many ordinary people going about their day- be it gardening, walking the dog or leaving a sex shop with an armful of porn mags- were caught on camera and immortalised forever for the entire world to see.

Naturally, Google took steps towards protecting the privacy of the unlucky few caught in embarrassing situations and blurred out the faces of those who happened to be out and about, so it’s not unusual to see shots of busy cities like Tokyo populated by people who look like they could be in a Japanese Adult Movie.

But when they go so far as to blur out KFC’s Colonel Sanders’ face, it just looks weird…

Masthead