About Jichitai Watch

Jichitai Watch is an information website that lets anyone easily check the finances of Japan's local governments (cities, towns, villages and special wards) and the public schemes that affect residents' daily lives.

This is an open-source project, developed and run on an unpaid basis so that anyone can easily understand the circumstances of Japan's local governments. It carries no advertising at all, and aims to provide neutral data that is independent of the interests of any particular political party, company or organisation.

Starting with the municipalities in Gifu Prefecture, the site shows their finances (revenue, expenditure and financial soundness) and public schemes that affect residents' daily lives (such as subsidies for children's medical costs, long-term care insurance premiums and Furusato Nozei hometown donations). The figures are compiled from material published by public bodies such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Children and Families Agency and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and each card lets you check the original source.

The site is designed to let you see not only current values but also changes in schemes and trends in indicators over time. The aim is to make it possible to follow not only "what the situation is now" but also "how it has changed".

We do not produce overall scores. For individual indicators we may show national rankings and rankings within a prefecture based directly on the measured values, but we do not produce overall rankings that combine several indicators using weights chosen by the operator. The order and presentation of information follow criteria set in advance and applied mechanically, and no particular local government is given special prominence.

Jichitai Watch is an open-source project, developed and run on an unpaid basis so that anyone can easily see the circumstances of Japan's local governments. It carries no advertising at all, and aims to provide neutral data that is independent of the interests of any particular political party, company or organisation.

• Operator: An individual
• Contact: contact@jichitaiwatch.jp
• Source code: Published under the MIT License (full text of the licence).
• Data: The site uses data published by government bodies and other sources, and its use is subject to each provider's terms. Many of these datasets are published under the Public Data License (Version 1.0, PDL1.0). For details, see About the data.
• Income and spending: At present we have no revenue and receive no donations. If we have any income or spending in future, we will disclose it on this page.

Jichitai Watch is run independently of the interests of any particular political party, company, organisation or candidate.

1. Funding: We carry no advertising and accept no funding that could influence what we publish. If we accept donations or similar support in future, we will not accept them from sources that would compromise our neutrality, and we will disclose on this site what we receive and how it is used.
2. Safeguarding neutrality: The neutrality of what we publish is safeguarded by published criteria applied mechanically, not by case-by-case judgements made by the operator.
3. Disclosure of editorial decisions: We make editorial decisions, such as which indicators to include, the comparison groups (nationwide, within the prefecture or similar local governments) and the options for switching between viewpoints, open to checking by anyone, by publishing the criteria for choosing indicators and the calculation formulas.

This project is currently run by an individual.

Permission to use the name "自治体Watch" ("Jichitai Watch") and the project's domain name is given only on condition that the policies on quality and neutrality are followed. We do not give unconditional, indefinite or irrevocable permission.

Jichitai Watch is designed not to collect users' personal information. This is how we handle information.

• We ask for information only through the corrections and contact form: There are no features such as member registration, comment posting or surveys. The only thing we ask you to fill in is the corrections and contact form. The form does not ask for your name. Giving an email address is optional, and it is needed only if you would like a reply.
• What you type in the search box: Searches for local government names are processed only within your browser. What you type is not sent to Jichitai Watch, to the company that delivers the site or to the web analytics service, and none of them stores it. When you search from the box on the home page, what you typed is added after the "#" in the address (URL) of the results page, but this part of the address is never sent outside your browser. It may remain in the browser history on your device, so please take care with the history on shared devices.
• Measuring site usage: We use Cloudflare Web Analytics, provided by Cloudflare, Inc., to see how often each page is viewed. It does not use cookies or browser storage, nor any means of identifying individual users. We see only aggregated figures, such as views per page, where visitors came from (referrers), country, device type, browser and operating system. We use these figures only to improve the content and to decide the order in which to add more areas, not for advertising. We do not use analytics services intended for advertising, such as Google Analytics.
• Server records: We use services from Cloudflare, Inc. to deliver the site. Cloudflare processes information about connections, such as the IP addresses of devices that view the site, in order to deliver the site and keep it secure. Matters such as how long this information is kept are governed by Cloudflare's privacy policy. Jichitai Watch itself does not obtain or store the IP addresses of visitors, and does not use these records to identify individuals.
• Enquiry emails and the form: If you email the corrections and contact address or send something through the form, we use any name, email address or other details you provide only to look into the matters or comments you raise and to contact you. Except where authorised or required by law, we do not give this information to third parties or make it public without your consent. The form uses Google Forms, and responses are stored on Google's servers. We delete emails and form responses approximately one year after we have finished dealing with them. The record of corrections includes only the date, the item concerned and a summary of the correction; it does not include the name or email address of the person who raised the issue.
• External sites: How information is handled on the sites of national and local governments and others that we refer to as sources is governed by each site's own rules.

If we change how we handle information, we will announce it on this page.