LINE: Calls & Messages

"Address book on your device. The communication app LINE ('LINE') offers an 'Auto Add Friends' feature which automatically adds other users as your friends in our Services when you upload information of your friend in your address book on your device. We will access only the phone numbers registered in your mobile device's address book when you have enabled this feature."

LINE accesses the user's device address book (contacts) for its Auto Add Friends feature, collecting phone numbers of people who may not have consented to having their data uploaded to LY Corporation's servers.

"We may collect the location information of your device when we provide contents according to your location information or when you share your location information with your friends in our Services... Even when you do not accept sending your location information, we may estimate your approximate location by using information such as your IP address."

LY Corporation collects device location data for content customization and ad targeting, and even when users explicitly decline location sharing, the company still estimates approximate location via IP address, undermining the user's opt-out choice.

"We may modify this Policy from time to time, and the latest version of the privacy policy will always be posted on this site. When we make any material changes to this Policy, we will notify you on our Services, or by other reasonable means... Continuing to use our Services after a notice of changes has been notified to you or published on our Services constitutes your acceptance of the changes and consent to the modified version of this Policy."

LY Corporation can change its privacy policy at any time, and simply continuing to use the service after a notification is posted is treated as the user's consent to whatever new terms are imposed.

"We share, among our group companies, including companies located in the following countries and regions, the Personal Data indicated in '3. Personal Data to be collected'... Countries and regions to which Personal Data is transferred: Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea and Singapore. In order to provide Service in a smooth manner, subcontractors and group companies, etc. may be added later to the recipients of Personal Data that we provide."

All collected personal data is shared across LY Corporation's group companies in multiple countries, with subcontractors in even more jurisdictions, and the company reserves the right to add new recipients later without requiring fresh consent.

"Unless you request the deletion of your account, in principle, we will retain most of your Personal Data. Once your account is deleted, we will process your Personal Data properly according to Applicable Laws and our internal rules after retaining such Personal Data for a given period of time for the following purposes: to reply to inquiries; to resolve disputes or collect fees; to detect and deter fraudulent use of, or abuse of, our Services; or to comply with Applicable Laws."

LY Corporation retains most personal data indefinitely by default, and even after account deletion, continues to retain data for an unspecified 'given period of time' for broad purposes including dispute resolution and fraud detection.

"This kind of use includes the associated management and use of our internal identifier of each Service assigned to users, identifiers assigned by Partner, advertising identifiers (including Identifier for Advertising (IDFA) and Google Advertising ID (AAID)), and various other identifiers and one-way encrypted (hashed) email addresses and telephone numbers... To distribute ads to you by ways such as associating or combining information obtained from our Partners, such as your identifier (internal identifier, ad identifier, etc.), hashed telephone number and email address, part of your device information (OS, etc.) and IP address, with your Personal Data that we possess."

LY Corporation links multiple identifiers—internal IDs, partner IDs, IDFA, AAID, hashed emails and phone numbers, IP addresses, and device info—across its services and partner services to build unified user profiles for ad targeting and measurement.

"Once we receive your request to delete your account, we will delete your information according to Applicable Laws and internal rules after retaining such information for a given period of time... We may continue to retain Personal Data in a format in which individuals cannot be identified after the lapse of the storage period prescribed pursuant to Applicable Laws and our internal rules."

After account deletion, LY Corporation retains personal data for an undefined 'given period of time' before actual deletion, and may continue retaining de-identified data indefinitely, with no clear timeline communicated to users.