TOKYO -- Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission has given administrative guidance to the operator of a website showing the residential addresses and other information of individuals who were reported as sex offenders, the government body announced April 4.

The operator, a group called "Kodomo o seihanzai kara mamoru Amyna project" (Amyna project to protect children from sex crimes), has since shut down the website, and apparently no damage from the addresses being revealed has been confirmed. The group collected and posted the alleged offenders' private information, which the commission deemed a violation of Japan's personal information protection law.

According to the personal information watchdog and the group's main website, the latter collected news articles from the past 10 years and created a database including the publishing date and content of those articles as well as the home addresses of alleged sex offenders, and released the information in March under the title "sex crime map."

The group had earlier claimed, "In the United States, there is an app allowing users to locate those with a history of sex offenses, and Japan needs a service like that."

The government body imposed administrative guidance on the group April 3, claiming the website in question "induces unjust discrimination as the information was published on the site without obtaining consent from the individuals."

In response, the group released a comment on its website, stating, "We closed the map after receiving the guidance. We will revamp the site in a way that will not run afoul of the personal information protection law."

(Japanese original by Ryota Saito, Tokyo City News Department)