The APAC Compliance Challenge
APAC data protection regulations have rapidly evolved. Japan's APPI (2022 amendments), Korea's PIPA (criminal penalties), and China's PIPL (GDPR-style with data localization). US-based SaaS companies face tools that do not recognize regional identifiers or languages.
- NER blindness - Models trained on English miss CJK entities entirely
- Format unfamiliarity - Western tools do not recognize APAC identifiers
- Regulatory complexity - Different requirements per country
- Data localization - Some data cannot leave the region
Regional Identifier Formats
APAC uses identifier formats unfamiliar to Western tools. Standard NER models recognize none of these:
| Country | Identifier | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | My Number | 12 digits |
| Japan | Passport | 2 letters + 7 digits |
| Korea | Resident Registration Number (RRN) | 13 digits (6+7) |
| Korea | Passport | 1 letter + 8 digits |
| China | Resident ID Card | 18 digits with region codes |
| China | Passport | E + 8 digits / G + 8 digits |
200 Million Japanese Records
A Chinese threat actor leaked 200+ million Japanese PII datasets including names, addresses, My Number identifiers, contact information, and financial data - more than the entire population of Japan.
PIPL Cross-Border Violations
Companies discovered processing Chinese customer data in US systems without consent, security assessment, or standard contract filing faced operations suspended in China pending remediation.
Korean Criminal Prosecution
Korea PIPA includes criminal penalties for serious violations. Executives can face prosecution and personal liability. Companies have faced criminal investigations for PII exposure incidents.
Multi-Engine CJK Support
cloak.business combines three NLP engines for comprehensive APAC coverage:
spaCy
Japanese, Chinese models
Stanza NER
Korean, Chinese, Japanese
XLM-RoBERTa
Cross-lingual transformer for all CJK
Japan
- My Number (12-digit, checksum validated)
- Japanese Passport
- Japanese Driver License
- Japanese Health Insurance Number
Korea
- Resident Registration Number (RRN)
- Korean Passport
- Korean Driver License
China
- Resident ID Card (18-digit with region codes)
- Chinese Passport
- Chinese Social Insurance Number
Data Localization Options
Detection Accuracy
| Scenario | English-Only Tools | cloak.business |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese My Number detection | 0% (missed) | 95%+ |
| Korean RRN detection | 0% (missed) | 95%+ |
| Chinese ID detection | 0% (missed) | 95%+ |
| CJK name recognition | 30-50% | 85%+ |
Key Takeaways
- APAC regulations have teeth - 5% revenue penalties, criminal exposure
- Regional identifiers require specialized patterns - NER alone cannot detect them
- CJK requires dedicated language models - English NER misses 50%+ of entities
- Data localization may be required - Cloud-only tools cannot comply
- UI localization signals commitment - APAC markets expect local experience