A metadata generating apparatus includes: a private-content-information creating unit that creates content information of an individual; a public-content-information collecting unit that collects public content information for which metadata for retrieval is created; a keyword extracting unit that extracts a keyword, which forms a basis of the metadata for retrieval, from the public content information collected by the public-content-information collecting unit; and a metadata generating unit that generates metadata for retrieval for a private content, which is created by the private-content-information creating unit, on the basis of the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting unit.