Osaka High Court clerk mistakenly adds approximately 6,000 people to litigation document sharing group

When a clerk at the Osaka High Court tried to share civil trial materials with the parties last month, it was revealed that he mistakenly included approximately 6,000 unrelated lawyers and court employees as members of the sharing process, according to an interview with the high court. No information leaks have been confirmed because the sharing was canceled before the lawsuit materials were uploaded online.

According to the Osaka High Court, on the morning of August 27th, a clerk created a group on the online conference system ``Teams'' whose members were the parties to the civil trial he was handling. At that time, approximately 2,500 high court employees who were not in charge and approximately 3,500 people, including lawyers, were invited and included as members.

The approximately 6,000 people who were invited were able to see each other's usernames and email addresses. The high court noticed this after an outsider pointed it out, and deleted the group about an hour and a half later. No litigation materials had been uploaded until the time they were deleted.

Kazuma Iwai, chief executive officer of the Osaka High Court, commented, ``We would like to provide guidance to ensure proper administrative processing.''

Civil trials began to be fully digitalized in May of this year, making it possible to submit complaints and briefs online.