Health-guidance contractor says an employee entered insured members' names and disease information into an unauthorised external generative AI service
A local-government employees' mutual aid association said in a notice dated 4 September 2026 that RIZAP, the company it contracts for specific health guidance, had reported that on 20 August 2026 it emerged that a RIZAP staff member, during data-extraction work, had entered data containing personal information into an external generative AI service that RIZAP did not permit. The association says 726 of its members across 14 branches are covered and lists the data as membership numbers, email addresses, names, dates of birth, sex, some addresses and phone numbers, the type of health guidance and, for members with them, high blood pressure, diabetes or dyslipidaemia. The IHI group health insurance society reported 210 of its members in a 2 September notice that, according to a security news site, names OpenAI as the provider, says the matter came to light through the employee's own report, and says OpenAI answered on 1 September that the data had not been used for model training. RIZAP's own release, as described in an ITmedia column, says the information was uploaded by mistake to a generative AI service the employee used privately, and that the company confirmed no possibility of viewing by third parties other than the service operator or of use in training. Whether the provider's staff could view the data was still being checked when the insurers published.
- AI system
- Unidentified OpenAI generative AI service (reported)
- Occurred
- Aug 2026
- Reported
- 2 September 2026
- Event location
- Unknown
- What the AI did
- Received personal information about the person
- Reported harm
- Other Material Harm
- Whose AI use
- Someone else’s AI use
- Setting
- Health · Work · Privacy
- Evidence
- AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources
- 5 claims: 5 reported. 5 open questions
- People reported harmed
- At least 726 people
AI system as recorded: An external generative AI service that the contractor had not authorised for work; RIZAP's own release calls it an external generative AI service used privately by the employee, and the IHI group health insurance society's notice, as relayed by a security news site, names OpenAI as the provider
What Happened
The data entry. The mutual aid association's notice says that on 20 August 2026, in data-extraction work at the contractor, it emerged that the contractor's staff member had entered data containing personal information into an AI service the contractor had not permitted. The contractor deleted the data from the AI service's screen and asked the provider to delete stored data. The notice does not say whether 20 August is the date of entry or of discovery, so the record keeps month precision.
Whose data. The association counts 726 members across 14 branches. The data included membership symbols and numbers, email addresses, names, dates of birth and sex, addresses and phone numbers for some members, and, under the notice's heading for special-care-required personal information, the type of specific health guidance and disease information for members with high blood pressure, diabetes or dyslipidaemia. Payment and login details were not included. The IHI group health insurance society separately reported 210 of its members who used RIZAP's guidance in fiscal 2024 to 2026, according to a security news site's report of its notice.
What followed. The IHI society's notice, as relayed, says the matter was found through the employee's self-report, that RIZAP asked the provider, OpenAI, to delete stored data and stop training use, and that OpenAI replied on 1 September that the data had not been used for model training. The IHI society said no third-party leak had been confirmed, and both insurers said whether the provider viewed or accessed the data was still being checked. RIZAP emailed the association's affected members on 4 September. RIZAP's release, as described in a MONOist column, calls the upload a mistake by an employee using an external generative AI service privately during data aggregation for its health-guidance management system and says the company confirmed that third parties other than the operator could not have viewed the data and that it was not used for training.
Reported harm
According to notices from two client insurers, an employee of their health-guidance contractor RIZAP entered personal data on insured members, including names, birth dates, insurance numbers, contact details and, for some, high blood pressure, diabetes or dyslipidaemia, into an external generative AI service that the company had not authorised; one insurer counts 726 affected members and another 210.
Outcome
OngoingRIZAP deleted the data from the service and asked the provider to delete stored data; it notified affected members by email on 4 September 2026. The insurers asked RIZAP to investigate the facts and scope and to adopt measures against recurrence. Whether provider staff viewed the data was unresolved at publication of the notices.
What remains unknown
- Whether 20 August 2026 is the date the data was entered or the date it was discovered.
- The total number of people across all of RIZAP's client insurers, and whether the 726 and 210 counts overlap.
- Which OpenAI product and account type the employee used; RIZAP's release does not name the service.
- Whether the provider's staff viewed or accessed the data.
- Whether the Personal Information Protection Commission has taken any action.
What the evidence supports
AI involvement: reported. The insurers' notices state that a contractor's staff member entered data containing members' personal information, including disease information, into an external generative AI service the contractor had not permitted, and that the data was deleted from the service afterwards; the provider was asked to delete stored copies. The privacy harm is that transfer of members' health-guidance data to an AI service without their knowledge. The notices record transmission and a provider answer that the data was not used for training; whether provider staff viewed it was unresolved, and no generated output about the members is reported.
5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean
Reported RIZAP reported to its client insurers that it came to light on 20 August 2026 that, in data-extraction work, one of its staff had entered data containing members' personal information into an external generative AI service the company had not authorised.
Causal attribution. All three accounts rest on RIZAP's own report of its employee's action, relayed by each insurer and by RIZAP's release; the transfer to the AI service is admitted by the company.
- chikyosai.or.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'令和８年８月 20 日、委託先におけるデータ抽出業務において、委託先担当者が個人情報を含む'; 'データを、委託先が利用を許可していない AI サービスに入力等を行ったことが判明しました。'
- rocket-boys.co.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'RIZAPの特定保健指導運営事務局で、従業員がデータ抽出業務を行う際、2024年度、2025年度、2026年度にRIZAPの特定保健指導を利用した210名分の個人情報を生成AIへ参照させたことが、当該従業員の自己申告で判明したとしています。'
- monoist.itmedia.co.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'個人で利用している外部の生成AIサービスへ、要配慮個人情報を含む顧客情報を誤ってアップロードしていたという事象です。'
Reported The mutual aid association says 726 of its members across 14 branches are covered, and that the data included membership numbers, email addresses, names, dates of birth and sex, some addresses and phone numbers, the type of health guidance and disease information on high blood pressure, diabetes or dyslipidaemia.
Causal attribution. The association's count of its own members, from its notice.
- chikyosai.or.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'対象者は 726 名で、対象支部は 14 支部'; '疾患情報（高血圧症、糖尿病、脂質異常症のいずれかに該当する方）'
Reported The IHI group health insurance society reported 210 of its members, said the matter was found through the employee's self-report, and said OpenAI answered on 1 September that the data had not been used for model training.
Causal attribution. Relayed from the society's notice by a security news site; the notice itself was not read.
- rocket-boys.co.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'対象は2024年度、2025年度、2026年度にRIZAPの特定保健指導を利用した210名です。'; '当該従業員の自己申告で判明したとしています。'; '9月1日、OpenAIから「当該データはモデルの学習に利用されていない」との回答を得ています。'
Reported The IHI society said no third-party leak had been confirmed, and both insurers said that whether the AI provider viewed or accessed the data was still being checked; RIZAP's release says it confirmed no possibility of viewing by third parties other than the operator and no training use.
Causal attribution. Statements by the insurers and RIZAP about the limits of the exposure; not independently verified.
- chikyosai.or.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'ビスに入力等を行ったデータについて、AI サービス提供事業者による閲覧・アクセスの有無に関し'
- rocket-boys.co.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'一方、IHIグループ健康保険組合は、現時点で第三者への情報漏えい等の事実は確認されていないとする一方、OpenAIによる閲覧の有無については確認を継続しています。'
- monoist.itmedia.co.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'当該生成AIサービスの運営事業者以外の第三者に閲覧された可能性と、生成AIの学習に利用された可能性はないことを確認したとしています。'
Reported RIZAP notified affected members by email on 4 September 2026.
Causal attribution. The association's statement of the notification.
- chikyosai.or.jp(opens in new tab) supports · Japanese
'漏えいの可能性のある対象者に対しては、委託先から令和８年９月４日１０時に電子メールによりご'
Sources
3 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.
- Local-government employees' mutual aid association (Chikyosai), notice of 4 September 2026 on its contractor's AI-service data entry(opens in new tab)
s1 · chikyosai.or.jp · Official record · Japanese · Inspected · 4 September 2026 · Primary
- Security-measures Lab (Rocket Boys), September 2026: report on the IHI group health insurance society's notice(opens in new tab)
s2 · rocket-boys.co.jp · News report · Japanese · Inspected
- MONOist (ITmedia), 24 September 2026: security column describing RIZAP's release(opens in new tab)
s3 · monoist.itmedia.co.jp · News report · Japanese · Inspected
How the sources were read, and where the events happened
Read in Japanese on 2026-10-12; quoted passages were translated into English by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator. Text extracted from the PDF with pdftotext; the notice relays what RIZAP reported to the association. Applies to s1.
Read in Japanese on 2026-10-12; quoted passages were translated into English by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator. A security news site's report of the IHI group health insurance society's 2 September notice; the society's own page was not read. Applies to s2.
Read in Japanese on 2026-10-12; quoted passages were translated into English by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator. A columnist's description of RIZAP group's release; the release page itself rendered no text to the fetcher and was not read directly. The page was decoded from Shift_JIS. Applies to s3.
Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Japan. Court countries: Unknown.
The affected members belong to Japanese insurers; the mutual aid association lists them by Japanese prefectural branches (Iwate, Akita, Osaka and others). The notices do not state where the employee did the data-extraction work, so no event country is recorded. No court is involved.
Reviewed for publication 2026-10-12: Published under the 2026-10-06 private-information ruling: two insurers' notices describe their contractor's employee actually entering members' identifying and disease information into an external generative AI service the contractor had not authorised, without the members' knowledge. The account rests on RIZAP's own admission as relayed by its clients and its release; the provider's answer on training and the open question of provider access are recorded.
People described
Members of employer health insurance societies and a public-employee mutual aid association whose specific health guidance was contracted to RIZAP, a fitness and health-guidance company
People reported harmed in this case
At least 726 people
0 AI participants · 726 other people harmed
Additional affected people are described without a reliable count.
One insurer's notice (a local-government employees' mutual aid association) states that 726 of its members were covered by the data entered into the AI service, across 14 branches; that is the counted minimum. A second client, the IHI group health insurance society, separately reported 210 of its members, as relayed by a security news site; these people are additional but the two lists are not shown to be disjoint, so they are left in the unquantified remainder. RIZAP's own release, as described in an ITmedia column, gives no total. The employee who entered the data is not counted.
Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.
Cite this case
Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.
APA
NOPE. (2026). Health-guidance contractor says an employee entered insured members' names and disease information into an unauthorised external generative AI service. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-japan-health-guidance-contractor-employee-uploaded-insured-members-health-data-to-unauthorised-ai-service
BibTeX
@misc{2026_japan_health_guidance_contractor_employee_uploaded_insured_members_health_data_to_unauthorised_ai_service,
title = {Health-guidance contractor says an employee entered insured members' names and disease information into an unauthorised external generative AI service},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {AI incidents},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-japan-health-guidance-contractor-employee-uploaded-insured-members-health-data-to-unauthorised-ai-service}
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