TOKYO – October 18, 2021 – Since the second half of 2016, LINE Corporation ("LINE") has been regularly publishing the "User Information Disclosure/Deletion Requests from Law Enforcement" report ("Report"), as part of its LINE Transparency Report. Recently, LINE has confirmed and amended several incorrect user information disclosure figures in previously published Reports. We sincerely apologize for these corrections and would like to provide more details regarding these revisions below.
About "User Information Disclosure/Deletion Requests from Law Enforcement"
The LINE Transparency Report is an initiative by LINE to enhance its corporate transparency. It is a regular publication that explains how the company handles data in order to maintain and operate its various services. One part of this is the User Information Disclosure/Deletion Requests from Law Enforcement report, which includes, among other things, information and figures for disclosure requests LINE has received from law enforcement and the cases in which the company provided such information. This Report has been released semi-annually between July 2016 and December 2020.*1
LINE Transparency Report: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/top
*1: The 2021 H1 report will be released at a later date.
Details about corrections and inaccuracies
LINE has recently confirmed and amended several incorrect figures in the semi-annual Reports. These corrections stemmed entirely from errors in manually created records for disclosure requests and duplicate calculations that occurred when aggregating these figures. We can, however, confirm that there had neither been any inappropriate inquiries were received, nor were there any improper disclosures made to law enforcement.
LINE discovered inconsistencies between the number of cases it actually responded to and the Reports' figures when verifying matters for a report to Z Holdings Corporation's (LINE’s parent company) special advisory committee.*2 Below are the cumulative figures that were originally published to date now and the corrected figures.*3
*2: Z Holdings Establishes a Special Advisory Committee of External Experts on Global Data Governance
https://linecorp.com/ja/pr/news/ja/2021/3679 (Japanese)
Second Report from the Special Advisory Committee on Global Data Governance, Aug. 4, 2021
https://www.z-holdings.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/5fbc03243bb76010584b0249ebf97531.pdf (Japanese)
*3: Originally published/corrected cumulative figures from July 2016 to December 2020.
*4: From among cases in which LINE provided data, indicates cases where authorities suspect that specific contact information (e.g. a phone number or LINE ID) of a user is involved in a crime.
The corrected figures and further details for each semi-annual Report can be found on the pages below.
LINE Transparency Report:
2016 H2: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2016h2
2017 H1: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2017h1
2017 H2: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2017h2
2018 H1: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2018h1
2018 H2: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2018h2
2019 H1: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2019h1
2019 H2: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2019h2
2020 H1: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2020h1
2020 H2: https://linecorp.com/en/security/transparency/2020h2
Improvement measures
Based on this incident, LINE will rigorously implement the following measures:
・Double check records (e.g. when receiving disclosure requests from law enforcement, editing records on cases where LINE provided data) and conduct regular checks for incorrect information
・Advise employees in charge of creating records once more of the process involved and provide ongoing training
・Prevent duplicate calculations when aggregating numbers by reforming the creation process for the Report, and double checking said process before moving forward
・The department in charge of aggregating figures and the department overseeing planning of the Report will work together on creating future Reports
We sincerely apologize for these corrections and will make every effort to prevent another such incident from occurring in the future.