Social Media Service Line Exposed Data of Japanese Users to China

It seems even Japanese companies can’t resist exposing the data of their users to China as it is said that a Chinese company was given the personal information of users of the popular Japanese chat app known as Line.

The Chinese company in question was affiliated with Line Corp. and it is said that Line Corp. made “inadequate disclosures on foreign access to data in its privacy policy” – the company has since reported the happening to the Personal Information Protection Commission and are stopping access to the personal data by the Chinese affiliate.

Four individuals hailing from the affiliate, Line Digital Technology (Shanghai), were given permission to access the private info from a Japanese server since August 2018 – the information exposed included phone numbers and ID numbers, to names and even a modicum of messages reported as “inappropriate content” by users.

The affiliate was allowed to ogle this private information as it was “required” to do its job, according to Line – Line also explained that it “did not know of any unauthorized access at this time”.

Attempting to lessen the blow of this inexcusable act, Line also said it had denied the affiliate the ability to acquire this data between February and March to “boost security”.

The privacy policy for Line is said to contain a statement explaining personal data might be transferred to a third country but does not mention overseas affiliates having access, similarly, there was no indication that foreign companies could be monitoring content of a user’s profile screen and bulletin board function.

A third-party committee will be investigating the matter further.