Before or instead of seeking administrative or judicial redress, an individual may decide to submit a complaint about the processing of his/her personal data to the controller itself. Based on Article 35 of the APPI, PIHBOs shall endeavour to deal with such complaints "appropriately and promptly" and establish internal complaint-handling systems to achieve this objective. In addition, under Article 61(ii) of the APPI the PPC is responsible for the "necessary mediation on a lodged complaint and cooperation offered to a business operator who deals with the complaint", which in both cases includes complaints submitted by foreigners. In this regard, the Japanese legislator has also entrusted the central government with the task of taking "necessary action" to enable and facilitate the resolution of complaints by PIHBOs (Article 9), while local governments shall endeavour to ensure mediation in such cases (Article 13). In that respect, individuals may lodge a complaint with one of the more than 1 700 consumer centres established by local governments based on the Consumer Safety Act (61), in addition to the possibility of lodging a complaint with the National Consumer Affairs Centre of Japan. Such complaints may also be brought with respect to a violation of the APPI. Under Article 19 of the Basic Consumer Act (62), local governments shall endeavour to engage in mediation with respect to complaints and provide the parties with necessary expertise. Those dispute resolution mechanisms appear quite effective, with a resolution rate of 91,2 % concerning more than 75 000 complaint cases in 2015.

With respect to all those redress avenues, the dispute resolution mechanism created by the Japanese government provides that an individual who is still dissatisfied with the outcome of the procedure can address the PPC "which shall inform the individual of the various possibilities and detailed procedures for obtaining redress under Japanese laws and regulations." Moreover, the PPC "will provide the individual with support, including counselling and assistance in bringing any further action to the relevant administrative or judicial body."

As is the case for investigations in the area of criminal law enforcement, also in the area of national security individuals may obtain individual redress by directly contacting the PPC. This will trigger the specific dispute resolution procedure that the Japanese government has created for EU individuals whose personal data is transferred under this Decision (see detailed explanations in recitals 141 to 144, 149).