Panasonic Operational Excellence announced on October 23 that it had uploaded data, including personal information of current and former employees and their families, to an external generative AI service whose use is prohibited. A total of approximately 334,000 individuals were affected.

During a human resources information system implementation project being advanced with its subsidiary, Panasonic Digital, a member transmitted data in violation of internal rules. The affected data is a portion of that registered in the HR information system as of April 2026, and includes employees of companies using the group-wide HR information system in the Japan region.

For approximately 75,000 current employees and 178,000 former employees, employee numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses were affected. Former employees include those who retired between fiscal years 1978 and 2026, as well as those who transferred to companies that acquired businesses.

Family information pertains to approximately 55,000 family members of current employees and 26,000 family members of former employees. This includes the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of family members registered by employees themselves as emergency contacts. For former employees' families, it is limited to those registered by individuals who retired in or after 2016.

Immediately after the discovery, the member deleted the generative AI chat history and the affected data from their work PC, and reported it to the Personal Information Protection Commission on September 29. Inquiries to the AI service provider revealed that the function for using data for AI learning was disabled at the time of upload, and thus, the data would not be used for responses to other users.

Even if chat history is deleted, service providers retain data for 30 days from the deletion date for security management and legal compliance. The company explained that after the retention period expires, specifically from October 25 onwards, the data will no longer be retained by the service provider.

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