The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has revealed that it is suspected that about 4,000 items of information were viewed by employees of Chugoku Electric Power Co., Ltd., who illegally viewed customer information of competitors through subsidiaries. bottom.
Since the full liberalization of the electricity retail market in 2016, transmission and distribution companies are prohibited by the Electricity Business Act from sharing customer information of retailers called "new electric power" with their parent companies, major electric power companies.
Under such circumstances, Chugoku Electric Power announced on the 27th of this month that 29 employees had illegally viewed 55 new electric power customer information managed by its subsidiary, Chugoku Electric Power Network.
In response to this, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry interviewed the company, and from the history of the terminal where customer information can be viewed in the event of a disaster, the information that employees had illegally viewed between the 19th and 25th of last month. It revealed that it was newly found that there were about 4,000 suspected cases.
The information viewed is the customer's name and contact information.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has asked Chugoku Electric Power Co. and its subsidiaries to provide detailed reports on the facts and measures to prevent recurrence, and will consider future responses.
In addition to Chugoku Electric Power and Kansai Electric Power, six electric power companies, Tohoku Electric Power, Chubu Electric Power, Shikoku Electric Power, and Kyushu Electric Power, have been exposed to the problem that major electric power companies illegally browsed competitors' customer information.