Privacy and Data

Line leverages technology responsibly to power prosperity around the world and we believe that everyone has a right to privacy. We also believe in providing transparency on how we collect, process and share personal information.

This Privacy Statement (“Privacy Statement”) describes our privacy practices for individuals in the United States when we process:

a) Personal information for the purposes of preparing a tax return or in connection with the preparation of a tax return (collectively, “Tax Preparation Information”) as part of providing Line tax preparation services.

b) Personal information for the purposes of providing the benefits of the Line platform, which is collectively, all Line’s services, sites, experiences and software (including through our mobile applications) other than Tax Preparation Data (the “Line Platform”); and/or

c) Personal information as necessary to manage, run and improve our business.

This Privacy Statement does not apply where Line processes personal information as a service provider on behalf of a customer or entity who alone or jointly with others determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal information (“Information Controller”). When we act as a service provider, the privacy statement of the relevant Information Controller and our agreements with such business or entity will govern our processing of personal information.

In certain circumstances, there may be more than one Information Controller processing your information. For example, a financial partner may also act as an Information Controller of personal information processed by Line. In these situations, we act as an independent Information Controller over our processing activities – meaning that we, as an Information Controller, make determinations over how your personal information will be processed independently from the other Information Controller. The other Information Controller may have their own obligations under applicable information privacy law, and you may need to speak with the other Information Controller directly for questions on how they process your personal information.

In order to access the benefits we make available in the Line Platform, data entered into one service or feature becomes a part of your Line Account.

The personal information contained within your Line Account is the combination of information that Line has about you. Your Line Account includes your credentials; your name and contact details; payment information; information about your activities, your interests and preferences; the content you place in our platform; information we have collected about you from third-party sources and insights that are associated with you.

The information in your Line Account will be shared across the Line Platform to generate our various offerings, services and experiences and otherwise maximize the benefits to you of our platform.

Some experiences and services within our platform may allow you to interact with an organization (such as your employer). If you are granted access to an organization , the owner of the organization or a designated administrator may control and administer details of your account, for example, by deciding your access rights; making decisions about your personal information (such as details about your payroll); or requiring you to take certain actions (for example, use location tracking to clock in for a shift). If your access rights are amended by the owner or designated administrator, then you may lose access to the information that lives in the organization.

Your use of our platform as part of an organization’s account may be subject to the organization’s policies, which may be different from this Statement. We are not responsible for the privacy or security practices of other organizations, and you should consider both the organization's policies and whether you are comfortable enabling the organization with access to your information prior to interacting with those organization’s Line Accounts.

We understand that your Tax Preparation Information is special. Except as necessary to provide you with tax preparation services or as authorized by law, we will not disclose your Tax Preparation information – including to Line’s affiliates and subsidiaries – unless you consent.

We will only use your Tax Preparation Information to provide you with tax preparation services or as authorized by law, unless you consent that we can use and/or share it for other purposes.

If you agree to share your Tax Preparation Information outside of our tax products to be used for purposes other than tax preparation services, including by sharing it with the Line Platform, your Tax Preparation Information will be handled in accordance with this Privacy Statement.

The personal information that we receive about you depends on the context of your interactions with Line, how you configure your Line Account and the choices that you make, including your privacy settings. Personal information that you provide may also depend upon what services or experiences you use, your location and applicable law.

We may collect certain information about you when you access or use the Line Platform. This may include:

Certain parts of the Line Platform make use of biometric personal information (“Biometric Information“), Biometric Information can be subject to additional laws and regulations.

We may collect Biometric Information from you when you enroll in our biometric identity program and automatically as part of our anti-fraud protection and customer support activities. These identifiers may include facial recognition information, voiceprints and key-stroke information, as well as mathematical representations of your biometric identifier, such as the template maintained for comparison. We may use Biometric Information to identify and authenticate you, and for security and similar purposes (such as tracking access in our facilities). We may share Biometric Information with third-party service providers who assist with our IT, security and fraud programs, our professional advisors, and as required by law or regulation. Line does not sell your Biometric Information.

When we collect Biometric Information, you will receive a specific notice and consent request at the time of that collection. You are not required to consent to the collection of Biometric Information in order to use our services, although some functionality may not be available if you decline and you may withdraw your consent at any time.

Line will retain Biometric Information until the purposes for which it was collected have been satisfied or three years from your or your organizational account manager’s last interaction with Line, whichever comes first.

Our platform is designed to help you connect with other people and organizations. As a result of those connections, others may be able to input information about you. You may also be able to input or process information about others. If you input information about others into our platform, you must only do so if you have first received the appropriate rights and permissions to do so, including by getting advanced written consent, if required by applicable law.

At Line, we believe that you have rights to information that pertains to you, your household and/or your business. If another person has input or processed information in the Line Platform on behalf of you, your family or your business (and we are processing such information as an Information Controller),you may ask to receive a copy of your information, even if you do not have an account with us. To help protect privacy and the security of your information, you may be asked to provide additional information to verify your identity and/or ownership rights prior to receiving a copy of the information. For specific instructions on how to request a copy of your information, please see the section “Your information rights and choices” below.

We also obtain information from outside parties or services to run our business. We protect and process information obtained from those parties as described in this Statement, consistent with any additional restrictions imposed by the source of the information. Our sources may vary over time and depend upon how you use the Line Platform. For a list of the categories of sources from whom we obtain information, please see the section “Other information sources” below).

We may also get information about you from others where permitted by applicable law. For example, we receive information from:

Some services and experiences in the Line Platform require you to provide information for it to function. If you do not wish to provide the required information, you may not be able to use certain features.

We collect and process personal information from you only where:

Personal information is used to operate our business, including but not limited to:

To provide you with valuable personalized advice, recommendations and experiences, we may process your personal information using automated and manual (human) methods. Our automated methods include artificial intelligence (AI) and a range of technologies that help our services learn and reason to improve our ability to personalize and enhance your experience in the Line Platform. We may also use your personal information for other purposes that are compatible with the disclosed purposes if and where this is permitted by applicable law.

From time to time, we may need to share your information in the following circumstances:

With your consent. We share your information with third-parties when you have requested us to do so.

For research. With appropriate controls, we may share information with third-parties for research purposes or to publish academic or policy-related materials. We only share information in a way that would not allow any individual to be identified.

For joint sales, promotions and events. We may share your information with third-parties who are jointly providing sales initiatives, promotions or events with us.

With financial services providers. We may share personal Information with credit bureaus to help you improve credit and loan service providers to find you loans outside of Line, financial product underwriters and payment card association members. We may also share your personal information with other companies, lawyers, credit bureaus, agents, government agencies, and card associations in connection with issues related to fraud.

With service providers. We share personal information with our service providers who provide services on our behalf for the purposes described in this Statement. Service providers are required to implement reasonable privacy and information protection controls to maintain the privacy and security of information provided to them consistent with the privacy practices outlined in this Statement.

For mergers and acquisitions. If we are involved with a merger, asset sale, financing, liquidation, bankruptcy, or the acquisition of all or part of our business to another company (collectively, a “Transaction”), we may share your information with that company and its advisors before and after the Transaction date.

Sales of personal information to third parties. We do not and will not sell personal information to third parties. We do share personal information with third-parties for the business purposes described in this Statement.

With our affiliates and subsidiaries. We may share your information with and among our affiliates and subsidiaries for everyday business purposes (as described in this Statement) as well as for marketing purposes.

Your Right to Limit information Sharing: certain laws, including Federal Law for our US customers, provides our customers with the right to limit our information sharing activities in certain circumstances. For example, you may have the right to limit our sharing of information about your creditworthiness with our affiliates for everyday business purposes or to limit sharing of your information to both affiliates and third-parties for marketing purposes. You can limit information sharing for our offerings through our Gramm-Leach Bliley Act notice, found here.

Other companies’ products, services and applications may use or integrate with our Line Platform, or otherwise be offered through our Line Platform. If you choose to link, sync or otherwise use any of these Non-Line Services you consent and direct Line to share your information, including personal information, to the company providing the Non-Line Services. Non-Line Services are subject to the applicable terms and privacy statement of the company providing the service.

Some of our features enable you to connect to a social media account or share information on social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter. Any information you choose to share on social media may potentially be visible to a global audience and will be subject to the social media provider's privacy policies (not this Statement). You should take care only to share information on social media that you are comfortable sharing.

Line may use advertising networks and other providers to display advertising on our Line Platform or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our advertising partners may place cookies on unaffiliated websites in order to serve advertisements that may be relevant to you based on your browsing activities and interests and determine the effectiveness of such advertisements. You may be able to opt-out of such interest-based advertising by visiting Digital Advertising Alliance's Network Advertising Initiative's, or Your Online Choices.

We may share your information with third-parties for legal reasons, including:

Regardless of your location, we believe that all persons should have privacy and information protection rights and choices.

Depending on where you live, you may have certain state-specific legal rights with respect to your personal information that we collect and process.

If you are an individual in the United States, you can file a request or take action on one of your rights by visiting your Line Account settings or our Privacy Center or contacting us at the contact details provided under the section “How to contact us.”

If you are a California resident, you may have the following rights: Verification. In order to protect your personal information from unauthorized access or deletion, we may require you to verify your login credentials before you can submit a rights request. If you do not have an account with us, or if we suspect that your account has suffered fraudulent or malicious activity, we may ask you to provide additional personal information for verification. If we are subsequently unable to confirm your identity, we may refuse your rights request.

Authorized agents. You may use an authorized agent to submit a rights request. If you do so, the agent must present signed written authorization to act on your behalf, and you may also be required to independently verify your identity or your legal authority or ownership of the personal information with us.

Access. You may have the right to access the categories of personal information we have collected about you, the sources from which that information was collected, the business or commercial purpose for collecting your personal information, the categories of third parties with whom we share your personal information, the specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of personal information we sold about you, the categories of third parties to whom we sold personal information about you, and the categories of personal information we disclosed for a business purpose.

Deletion. You may have the right, under certain circumstances, to request that we delete the personal information you have provided to us.

Non-discrimination. You have the right to be free from discrimination related to your exercise of any of your California privacy rights.

Please note that we may claim legal exemptions for certain types of personal information from all or certain parts of the CCPA pursuant to various CCPA exemptions.