User data on payment app exposed to public in Japan, Taiwan

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Data of thousands of users in a smartphone payments app in Japan and Taiwan was publicly available on the internet for at least two months, reports said on Tuesday.

Data of at least 130,000 Japanese users on the app Line Pay was put on the internet and remained accessible until November, Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.

The app is operated by major messaging app company Line Corp. and is used to transfer money among users, make online purchases, or for payments at shops and restaurants.

Similarly, more than 70,000 Line Pay users in Taiwan “have been affected by a leak of transaction information,” Taipei-based daily Focus Taiwan said.

This was revealed late Monday after Line Pay said an employee had “mistakenly uploaded certain information” about the customers to the software development platform GitHub, available to the public on Sept. 12-Nov. 24.

The information of the users included payment amounts, dates, and times during a promotional campaign held from December 2020 to April this year, while it “did not include data like user names, addresses or credit card numbers.”

“Although no damage from the information leak has been reported so far, it may have been possible to identify users through a special analysis,” Line Pay noted in a statement.

“We apologize deeply for causing great trouble and concern,” the firm said.