Sakai City Cultural Foundation: a former employee took data on 37,164 ticket members and leaked part of it, including staff and councillor details, on X and by email

1. 2025-09-08

   It announced that a former employee had taken personal data. Defamatory posts on X contained details of staff and city councillors and hinted at selling or publishing member data, and its investigation found the former employee involved. [1] [2] [3] [4]

In March 2020, while still employed, the former employee took the member data of the foundation's "sacay Mate" ticket service from its information system. It covers the names, addresses, birth dates, sex, phone numbers and email addresses of 37,164 members as of March 2, 2020, and no card data. After leaving, from April 2020 to around April 2022, the person logged in to the system from a terminal the foundation had lent to an outside party and also took data on 82 foundation staff, 59 Sakai city staff and 48 city councillors. [1] [2] [3]

Confirmed as leaked outside were data on 92 foundation staff, 63 city staff and 48 city councillors, used in defamatory posts that continued from March 2022. The former employee admitted the defamation and data theft but denied leaking all of the data. The foundation recovered the data from the person. It said viewing personal data required no password and external media were not restricted, and it tightened access limits and log monitoring. [1] [2]