LINE

Privacy rights can be interpreted as the right to have control over one’s own information. The choice to select what personal information and to what degree this information is disclosed to others, and the control over who has access to this information, are each vital to further protecting user privacy. One can enhance privacy protection by limiting the disclosure and provision of personal information. On the other hand, by using personal information, users can connect with friends and share contents. 

In light of this, LINE has created privacy settings for all services. Users can, select what information is to be disclosed or supplied, to what extent, and can decide who will be allowed to access this information. The privacy settings are explained in detail as follows.

■Phone number

The user’s phone number (or their Facebook account as explained below) is used as a confirmation key to prevent people looking to conduct illegal or wrongful activities, including sending spam to other users, from creating an account. Note that for users who chose to activate the address book matching function, LINE will use the phone number information registered in their address books to match them with friends on LINE. Users can choose whether to use this address book matching function and activate or deactivate this setting at any time. 

■Facebook account

As discussed above, the user’s phone number is generally used as the account confirmation key. However, there is a growing need for confirmation keys other than phone numbers since there are users that do not want to register their phone numbers or create links with their address books, and there are users using SNS, such as Facebook, that do not exchange phone numbers with people they actually meet and have become friends with, or for friends and acquaintances overseas who frequently change their phone numbers. In light of this, currently a LINE account can be created or transferred by using a Facebook account. Users can register and connect their Facebook account to their LINE account. The setting for this link can be deactivated at any time.

Note that after confirmation by phone number of a Facebook account, a user can use the LINE account simply by using the name setting on LINE, which can be changed at any time. 

■Email address

Users can select whether or not to register their email address information.

Users can use LINE even if they do not provide us with their email address information*. Users can register their email address information to take advantage of our multi-device function which allows users to access the same account on various devices using the same credentials or by transferring account data. Registration, changes, and deletions can be done at any time using the LINE app settings. Information entered can be deleted later.

*Feature phone users do not have to register their email address as the user’s mobile phone email address is used as the account confirmation key rather than a phone number. 

■Smartphone address book data*

*This only applies to telephone numbers and mobile phone email addresses. LINE will not collect information, including names, pictures, addresses, or email addresses other than mobile phone email addresses, that have been stored in a user’s address book. 

Users have the option of selecting whether or not to use their smartphone address book to make it easier to connect with friends on LINE. Users can use LINE without providing LINE with their address book information. Users can easily connect with friends by activating the address book matching function at the time of initial signup or anytime thereafter to upload only pertinent address book information*.

The setting to select this option can be activated or deactivated at any time, not only at the time of initial signup. LINE will delete the user’s address book information when the setting is deactivated.

■Posting information on a timeline

The user can select what LINE friends can or cannot view the information the user has posted to their timeline. 

LINE will continue to add new functions and improve user convenience to allow users to make detailed choices about the information they post.