Japan passes law allowing firms to collect personal data for AI

Japan's parliament has amended its personal data protection law to allow companies to collect sensitive personal information without individual consent for AI development and statistical analysis, provided the data is deemed low-risk and companies disclose usage and face fines for misuse. The government will also share its own datasets with private companies and research institutes for AI and autonomous driving development. If you're training models in Europe or the US, you're still fighting consent laws; Japanese competitors now have a legal moat to scrape low-risk personal data at scale. Move your data pipeline to Japan or accept that your training will cost more than theirs.