Social software such as LINE and Facebook have become an indispensable part of many people’s lives. However, with the rise of digital advertising, more users are paying attention to the data collection of applications or software, hoping to understand how much privacy they retain when using them. LINE will update the “LINE Privacy Policy” in the near future to further clarify how to use information with partners.
“LINE Privacy Policy” will be updated soon. You must agree to continue using LINE.
In LINE’s announcement, LINE stated that the “LINE Privacy Policy” that will be updated this time is to provide users with a more secure LINE usage environment, and to comply with the Japanese Personal Data Protection Act, which will be revised and effective on April 1, 2022. It does not change or add the scope of users’ previous consent, and only further “states the way to use information with partners.”
Regarding the “methods in which partners jointly use information” mentioned after the update, LINE stated that “when LINE partners send messages or place advertisements to users through official accounts, the information collected by LINE partners (such as user identification codes) may be combined with the information held by LINE to send the aforementioned messages and place advertisements. LINE will only provide statistical data to partners and will not provide information that can identify users.” Because this explanation seems a bit vague, LINE has explained it with specific examples.
In LINE’s hypothetical scenario, “In order to verify the effectiveness of partner company A’s marketing activities on LINE, LINE temporarily obtains the product purchase records held by company A, conducts comparative analysis with the ad viewing data and user attribute (age, gender, hobbies, etc.) information held by LINE, and provides this statistical data to partner company A. This statistical data does not include personally identifiable information.”
The information circulation involved in this process includes that Company A will provide user information with product purchase records to LINE after being encrypted and processed. This type of user information includes user-related identification information (internal identification codes, advertising identification codes, etc.), one-way encrypted (using hash function) email accounts and phone numbers, attribute data, purchase records and viewing records, etc.
LINE will analyze the user information provided by Company A, and the analysis results will be converted into statistical data and then provided to Company A. According to LINE, when establishing analysis and statistical data, in order to protect the security of users’ personal information, a number of security management measures will be taken. Includes the following points:
1. Regarding product purchase records and other activity record information, the products obtained by LINE are arbitrary IDs that have been transformed, and the products will not be identified during analysis.
2. Regarding capturing the identification information used by LINE users, LINE obtains information that has been one-way encrypted (using a hash function), and user information for non-LINE users will be deleted as soon as possible.
3.LINE will delete the analysis results of LINE users after a certain period of time and will not provide the results to other third parties.
4. In order to prevent the relevant information of a specific user from being easily identified, LINE will only provide statistical data when the sample size is large enough.
LINE also emphasized: “The internal LINE data used for analysis does not include the content of messages sent and received between users.”
The “LINE Privacy Policy” that will be updated in the near future is applicable to users of LINE iOS and Android versions 12.2 (inclusive) and above. Starting from March 16, 2022, users who meet this corresponding version will receive a full screen pop-up window one after another when launching the LINE app, notifying them of updates to LINE’s privacy policy.You must agree to continue using LINE. If the user does not click “Understand and continue to use” in the notification window of this privacy policy update before March 23, 2022 at the latest, they will no longer be able to use the LINE application.
Since this privacy policy mentions the analysis of information jointly used by such LINE partners, the messages sent by LINE official accounts and the ads displayed in LINE’s various services will be more consistent with user interests. However, there may still be people who want to stop displaying personalized ads from LINE partners. LINE stated that they can stop displaying ads delivered through the personally relevant information provided by the partner through steps such as “Home>Settings>Privacy Settings>Advertising-related Settings>Cancel the use of LINE internal identifiers to receive personalized ads,” but “ad delivery itself will not stop.”
As personal privacy becomes the focus of software applications, the strengthening of privacy rights will always be proposed again and again. However, we all know that with the popularity of digital advertising and marketing, this type of user information is always the most critical point for precise marketing. Therefore, user privacy will always have a tug-of-war with information sharing. However, no matter what, if you want to use these software services, you must agree to the privacy policy. Sometimes it seems that there are not many choices.
LINE will update the “LINE Privacy Policy” announcement in the near future
Source: KOCPC Chinese