Policy Observatory

The charity Samaritans has suspended a new Twitter app which enables users to monitor the accounts of their friends for distressing messages, following a backlash from privacy campaigners. The Radar app, which launched just over a week ago, sends an alert to users when people they follow post messages that suggest depressed or suicidal thoughts. But critics, including the founder of a petition against the app which won more than 1,200 signatures, argued the tool breaches user’s privacy by collecting, processing and sharing sensitive information about their emotional and mental health.

A Japanese Internet activist and academic is challenging a new state secrets law by setting up a website aimed at making it easier for government officials to leak sensitive information to the media without getting caught. The state-secrets law drafted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government went into effect last week after year-long protests against it. The law sets prison terms of up to 10 years for public servants or others leaking state secrets, while journalists and others who encourage such leaks could be imprisoned for five years.