The House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, will install security cameras in the Diet building starting in fiscal 2027.
The plan has been considered partly in response to an incident in which a government employee secretly filmed a woman in a Diet building restroom in 2021.
The planned move to expand camera coverage beyond the areas around the gates and fences raises concerns about increased surveillance, as negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties over the handling of important bills are often conducted behind closed doors in the Diet building.
In June, a Lower House Steering Committee panel unanimously approved the plan to install security cameras in the main part of the building and an annex as well as at the entrance to and in the corridors of another annex.
Waiting rooms allocated to each Diet group will not be monitored. The number of security cameras and the necessary costs will be determined later. When the matter was considered in 2015, the total cost was estimated at ¥180 million for 66 cameras.
In the Parliament building, lawmakers and government officials often become active during plenary sessions and budget committee meetings, or when tensions between the ruling and opposition parties escalate. However, outside of these times, it is not uncommon for the premises to be quiet even while the Diet is in session.
Meanwhile, when the ruling and opposition parties need to revise bills or discuss deliberation schedules, related lawmakers sometimes engage in private talks in the Parliament building.
A veteran member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who is well-versed in Diet affairs, expressed concern that lawmakers and others “would not be able to move discreetly.”
At the panel meeting in June, Yasuhiro Nakagawa, acting Diet affairs chief of the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance, emphasized the importance of “guaranteeing freedom of political activities.”
There has been no movement in the House of Councilors, the upper chamber, regarding the installation of security cameras.
