A normal, albeit windy, working day for a Japanese bureaucrat took a turn for the worse when a document containing residents' personal information was blown away in a real-life slapstick accident.
Officials in central Japan's Aichi region were using a trolley to transport cardboard boxes filled with documents from one building to another when, horrifyingly, the boxes tipped over.
Aichi Prefecture announced this week in an apology statement that despite staff members' efforts to collect bundles of paper that had been scattered on the road by the wind, three were lost.
“More than 10 other officials joined the search until sunset,” Akira Kato, a prefectural official, told AFP on Friday.
Aichi Prefecture has announced that it will digitize data to prevent the embarrassing incident from happening again.
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The three missing sheets reportedly contained data for 121 households, including residents' names and rental housing details.
A total of 1,696 pieces of paper were contained in the cardboard box carried by an employee of the prefectural housing division.
After last Friday's incident, the search was extended over the weekend, but no documents were found.
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Kato said, “I called or visited all the affected households and apologized.''
The prefecture said, “We sincerely apologize to the residents and those involved,'' and added, “There have been no reports that the lost data was misused.''
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