The number of applications filed with courts in Japan for orders to disclose sender identification information, a legal procedure used to identify individuals responsible for online posts involving alleged rights violations, exceeded 10,000 annually for the first time in 2025.

The number of applications filed with courts nationwide increased from 3,959 in 2023 to 6,779 in 2024 and 10,072 in 2025.

    The procedure allows individuals whose rights may have been infringed through social media or websites to seek information identifying the person responsible for a post. A new legal procedure was introduced in October 2022 to make the disclosure process more efficient and faster.

The rise in applications may reflect both increasing efforts to address online rights violations and wider use of the new legal procedure.

Comment from GAME-F

For children and adolescents, online spaces—including social media, games, video platforms, and chat services—have become part of everyday life. At the same time, online posts and messages may infringe the rights of others, including their privacy and reputation, and young people themselves may also become victims of such harm.

An important perspective in addressing these issues is digital citizenship.

    Living in a digital society is not only about how much time is spent online. It also means learning how to interact with others online, how to respect and protect one's own rights and those of others, and where to seek help when problems arise.

Online behavior is part of real life.

References

Kidsnet / Asahi Shimbun, “Applications to identify posters involved in online defamation exceed 10,000”
https://kids.gakken.co.jp/news/103712/

Courts in Japan, Judicial Statistics
https://www.courts.go.jp/toukei_siryou/shihotokei_nenpo/index.html