The Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) on Feb. 10 put together a draft report recommending energy companies be made to do background checks on employees working at important nuclear facilities or with nuclear materials.
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Specifics are expected to be ironed out by a new government atomic energy regulatory organ to be established in April.
In January of last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a recommendation that the trustworthiness of nuclear employees be checked, and according to the JAEC, background checks on nuclear employees are already performed in most major countries. Such checks were considered in Japan in 2004 by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, but were not implemented over privacy concerns.
After the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, the JAEC recommended checks because “implementing counterterrorism measures for nuclear facilities, which can cause serious damage to society, is an urgent matter.”
One obstacle to the checks is that it is difficult for power companies to check on workers’ criminal records or debts, so police and other authorities would have to help. Furthermore, Tokyo Electric Power Co. could not confirm the identities of some of the workers who had been sent to the Fukushima No. 1 plant in recent background checks, and the JAEC has admitted it would be difficult to put the checks into practice.
