Photo/Illutration The National Police Agency’s panel of experts on preventing stalking holds its first meeting on Oct. 9, 2020. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The National Police Agency will seek revisions to the anti-stalking law to prevent offenders from using GPS devices to locate their targets and harassing them with repeated letters.

A revision bill is expected to be submitted to the current session of the Diet.

Police have been cracking down on people who secretly install GPS devices in cars or other belongings to find out where their targets are. The NPA deems such acts as “monitoring,” which is banned under the anti-stalking law.

But in July last year, the Supreme Court ruled that obtaining someone’s location information through the remote use of GPS devices does not constitute “monitoring targets around their homes and other places” under the law.

The ruling prompted the NPA to set up the expert panel in October.

In its report released on Jan. 28, the panel said the definition of “stalking and other acts” banned under the anti-stalking law should include obtaining someone’s location information using GPS devices without their consent.

The panel explained that such acts are disturbing to the targeted individual and could escalate into more serious crimes.

The report also said the law should be revised to specifically outlaw acts of secretly installing GPS devices in cars, slipping the devices into belongings and obtaining targets’ locations by secretly installing GPS-related apps in their smartphones.

In addition, the panel recommends banning the act of sending letters and other documents in succession to targets, as well as adding “existing locations,” such as shops, as places where stalking is prohibited.

The current law only covers victims’ homes, workplaces and schools.

‘STRONGER DETERRENCE’

“Victims will feel great fear if stalkers can locate them by using GPS devices and other tools, so it is meaningful to ban such acts in the law,” said Akiko Kobayakawa, a panel member who heads the Tokyo-based nonprofit organization Humanity.

She has provided consultations for stalking victims and perpetrators for around 20 years, and said the types of stalking have become diversified.

In one case that Kobayakawa dealt with, a female victim began frequently bumping into her former boyfriend at such places as a cemetery and a festival. Growing suspicious of his behavior, she checked her car and found a GPS device.

Kobayakawa said many other cases have involved stalkers suspected of using GPS devices and other tools to locate their targets.

“If the law prohibits the act of installing such devices, that could serve as a stronger deterrence (against stalking),” she said.

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