NEYAGAWA, Osaka Prefecture--Staff at municipal service counters here can now don fictitious “work names” on their badges to safeguard their privacy from hostile visitors.

Neyagawa city began allowing its civil servants to keep their real identities confidential in dealing with the public in April.

The city government dubbed the latest endeavor as “likely the first of its kind at public offices, whether local or the central government.”

Behind the decision lies the specter of “customer harassment,” where consumers and service users make unreasonable demands to workers or resort to extreme misbehavior when they don’t get their way.

Neyagawa officials instituted the pseudonym system, coinciding with the introduction of new-style name tags to be worn by its staff while on duty.

Conventional ID badges displayed public employees’ face images and their surnames in easy-to-understand hiragana, such as “Sato” and “Tanaka.”

But facial photos have been removed from all staff tags under the recently launched framework, and counter clerks can use business names instead of their real ones if they choose.

The Neyagawa city government said it has so far received a request for an alias name tag from at least one official.

Takenori Uenosono, the head of the municipality's human resources department, stressed the importance of the adoption of fictious names for business use.

“The change this time is part of our efforts to create a safe working environment in which civil servants can perform their duties without fear of harassment or unjustified resentment from visitors,” Uenosono said. 

According to his accounts, officials at service desks of Neyagawa city are often subjected to hours-long yelling, threatening language and other excessive disturbances from citizens who show up at the city-affiliated establishments.

Some trouble has been reported regarding civil servants’ names. For example, an official’s personal information was obtained and verified based on the worker’s name to request a “friendship” with the employee on a social media site.

The idea of the business name system was thus conceived and proposed to prevent the staff’s personal information from being inappropriately searched for and obtained. 

DIFFICULTY PROTECTING CIVIL SERVICE WORKERS

Pseudonyms will be limited exclusively to those “considered suited for responding to citizens.”

Among the examples cited by the city government are not only maiden names but also aliases that partially include actual surnames.

The municipality said that it is considering applying fake names not only to badges but also business cards. The use of business names may likewise be given the nod for communications between public employees from now on.

Masayuki Kiriu, a criminal psychology professor at Toyo University’s Faculty of Sociology, who is knowledgeable about customer harassment, noticed the unique challenges faced by civil servants, who are subjected to abusive acts from citizens.

“It would be OK for private companies to turn away problematic consumers, saying, ‘You do not need to buy from us’ or ‘I do not want you to shop with us,’” Kiriu said. “But this option is not available for civil service workers.”

Kiriu called for an even more radical solution.

“Is it really essential for citizens to know the names of officials in charge of public counter tasks in the first place during an age when personal information can so easily be leaked unprotected online?” he asked. “Perhaps the time has come to reconsider the topic from a fundamental point of view.”

BATTLING CUSTOMER HARASSMENT ACROSS JAPAN

Aside from the initiative in Neyagawa, local governments across Japan have successively been implementing specialized ordinances to combat customer harassment at stores and shops as well as public offices.

Data compiled by the Research Institute for Local Government show that five regional authorities, including Tokyo and Hokkaido, put their dedicated ordinances against customer harassment into force in April.

As one of these local governments, Kuwana city in Mie Prefecture took it a step further by adding a countermeasure to its ordinance that allows the municipal mayor to name and shame malicious offenders.

In weighing the details of the ordinance, Kuwana city surveyed business operators and other people within the municipality.

Respondents reportedly clamored for “effective rules” and “some penalties” in the study.

With the research results in mind, the ordinance requires the Kuwana mayor to seek advice on dealing with any potential customer harassment case from a special committee of lawyers and experts in preparation for initiating a probe.

Respective instances are examined to determine whether they should officially be recognized as customer harassment.

Offenders who fail to improve their behavior even after warnings are issued will have their names and other personal information disclosed on Kuwana city’s website for one year or so.

(This article was written by Keitaro Nishizaki and Ko Sendo.)