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Pub in Osaka, the neighboring city of Amagasaki
Photo: Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images
An external employee of the city of Amagasaki (Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan) left a USB stick with the data of all 460,000 residents in a bar.
This was confirmed by the city administration.
The man lost his bag with the USB stick on a pub crawl on Tuesday evening.
Personal data such as names, addresses, dates of birth as well as tax documents and bank details of all residents of Amagasaki were copied onto the stick in order to later be sent to a call center in nearby Osaka.
A city spokesman apologized for the incident, which "severely shook trust in the administration".
According to the spokesman, the data was at least encrypted and the USB stick was secured with a password.
So far there is no evidence that unauthorized persons have gained access to the data.
mgo/AFP