https://sg.news.yahoo.com/japanese-nuclear-worker-loses-phone-215804762.html
Thu, 8 January 2026 at 5:58 am SGT
3 min read
The Hamaoka nuclear plant is about 120 miles west of Tokyo, in central Japan - Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
A Japanese nuclear employee lost his work phone, containing sensitive information, during a holiday to China in a major security breach.
The phone contained confidential contact details for staff involved in nuclear security work at the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), Japan’s nuclear safety agency.
The affected staff are responsible for protecting nuclear materials from theft and terrorism across Japan’s facilities.
The employee lost the phone going through security at a Shanghai airport on a personal trip on November 3. He did not notice it was missing for three days, and was unable to recover it from the airport.
Phones are issued to all NRA employees in case of emergency. The agency said it could not confirm if the data was leaked, according to reports.
The incident is the latest in a series of setbacks for Japan as it tries to rebuild public trust in its nuclear power plants, which were all left idle after an earthquake and tsunami caused a crisis at the Fukushima plant in 2011.
On Wednesday, its nuclear watchdog also announced that operators found falsified data about earthquake risks at the Hamaoka nuclear plant.
The Hamaoka plant sits near a major fault line - The Asahi Shimbun
“This is unbelievable. It completely shatters the trust in the operator,” a senior NRA executive said, according to Japan Today. “It will make people question its eligibility.”
The Hamaoka plant, about 124 miles west of Tokyo, in central Japan, is on a coastal area where a so-called Nankai Trough megaquake, which occurs in the Pacific region once every 90 to 150 years and last erupted in 1946, is a potential risk.
Chubu Electric Power Co had applied for screenings to restart the Hamaoka plant’s No 3 and No 4 reactors more than a decade ago. Two other reactors at the plant are being decommissioned, and a fifth is idle.
The NRA, formed after the Fukushima disaster, said it started an internal investigation in February after a whistleblower tipped it off that the utility had for years provided fabricated data that underestimated potential seismic risks.
“We sincerely apologise for the incident,” Kingo Hayashi, the president of Chubu Electric Power Co, told a press conference in Nagoya. “The actions could potentially shake the foundations of the nuclear power business.”
Shinsuke Yamanaka, the NRA chairman, said the safety watchdog was free to exert “the most significant step” under its authority, which he said could be the decision to deny approval for the restart of Chubu Electric’s only nuclear power plant.
“This is an unprecedented case, so I imagine that it will be a fairly severe response,” Mr Yamanaka told a press conference, adding that the utility had breached basic international safety standards.
Japanese nuclear worker loses phone containing top secret data in China
Lilia SebouaiThu, 8 January 2026 at 5:58 am SGT
3 min read
The Hamaoka nuclear plant is about 120 miles west of Tokyo, in central Japan - Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
A Japanese nuclear employee lost his work phone, containing sensitive information, during a holiday to China in a major security breach.
The phone contained confidential contact details for staff involved in nuclear security work at the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), Japan’s nuclear safety agency.
The affected staff are responsible for protecting nuclear materials from theft and terrorism across Japan’s facilities.
The employee lost the phone going through security at a Shanghai airport on a personal trip on November 3. He did not notice it was missing for three days, and was unable to recover it from the airport.
Phones are issued to all NRA employees in case of emergency. The agency said it could not confirm if the data was leaked, according to reports.
The incident is the latest in a series of setbacks for Japan as it tries to rebuild public trust in its nuclear power plants, which were all left idle after an earthquake and tsunami caused a crisis at the Fukushima plant in 2011.
On Wednesday, its nuclear watchdog also announced that operators found falsified data about earthquake risks at the Hamaoka nuclear plant.
The Hamaoka plant sits near a major fault line - The Asahi Shimbun
“This is unbelievable. It completely shatters the trust in the operator,” a senior NRA executive said, according to Japan Today. “It will make people question its eligibility.”
The Hamaoka plant, about 124 miles west of Tokyo, in central Japan, is on a coastal area where a so-called Nankai Trough megaquake, which occurs in the Pacific region once every 90 to 150 years and last erupted in 1946, is a potential risk.
Chubu Electric Power Co had applied for screenings to restart the Hamaoka plant’s No 3 and No 4 reactors more than a decade ago. Two other reactors at the plant are being decommissioned, and a fifth is idle.
The NRA, formed after the Fukushima disaster, said it started an internal investigation in February after a whistleblower tipped it off that the utility had for years provided fabricated data that underestimated potential seismic risks.
‘An unprecedented case’
The utility told the regulatory watchdog that it picked a type of earthquake wave that was closest to the average among 20 different patterns for calculating the standard seismic motion that the reactors could withstand during a quake, according to local media.“We sincerely apologise for the incident,” Kingo Hayashi, the president of Chubu Electric Power Co, told a press conference in Nagoya. “The actions could potentially shake the foundations of the nuclear power business.”
Shinsuke Yamanaka, the NRA chairman, said the safety watchdog was free to exert “the most significant step” under its authority, which he said could be the decision to deny approval for the restart of Chubu Electric’s only nuclear power plant.
“This is an unprecedented case, so I imagine that it will be a fairly severe response,” Mr Yamanaka told a press conference, adding that the utility had breached basic international safety standards.
