Line says there’s no official request from Thai government to investigate chats

At yesterday’s annual event for NHN’s popular messaging app, Line, it was annouced that Thailand, with 18 million users, is the second largest country for the platform. However, questions did arise during the Q&A session. Although many people use the chat app, some recent reports suggested the Thai government will monitor Line chat texts. Users are asking about Line’s position on the matter.

According to Thannews, NHN Corporation president Akira Morikawa today officially commented in Tokyo about the Thai police’s plan to check on Thai citizens’ Line conversations.

We have not received an official request from the Thai government. However, Line’s guidelines focus on users’ privacy, and that’s the company’s priority.

In addition, Line indicated that for the company to surrender users’ information, it would be under the circumstance that the Thai police contact the Japanese police with a court request for the company to cooperate. However, the company has no policy of interfering with user data or information, no matter the purpose of the conversation.

Line’s exact policy when dealing with law enforcement and government requests in Japan is as follows:

Line Corporation is sometimes requested to disclose the contents of talk from police for the purposes of criminal investigation. If there is a request, LINE Corporation provides the content of chatting log to the investigating authority, within the scope of the permission from which is issued by the court. We do not provide any features or systems that allow access to user information freely to government.

(Editing by Paul Bischoff)