# LINE OSINT: ID search, OpenChat rooms and what is actually public (2026)

Last verified: 9 September 2026. LINE is the default messenger of Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, with a large Indonesian base. LY Corporation's media guide reports 98 million monthly active users in Japan as of late March 2025, about 80 percent of the population. Aggregator estimates: Thailand ~51M, Taiwan ~21M, Indonesia ~13M (approximate).

## What is public
- Closed: one-to-one chats and groups up to 50 members (Letter Sealing end-to-end encryption), profiles reachable only through friending.
- Open: OpenChat public rooms (web directory), official accounts (businesses, public bodies), VOOM posts set to Public ("people other than your followers will also be able to see it").

## LINE ID search
- Returns a profile only if the target enabled "Allow others to add me by ID". "User not found" = not discoverable, not non-existent.
- Accounts verified with a Japanese phone number cannot search by ID or phone until carrier age verification (au, NTT Docomo, SoftBank, Y!mobile, LINE Mobile) confirms the user is 18 or over; corporate contracts and unsupported carriers cannot verify.
- A LINE ID "cannot be changed or deleted" once set, must be unique, and uses lowercase alphanumerics, periods, hyphens and underscores: a permanent identifier once captured.
- No search by display name exists. No web lookup exists.

## OpenChat
- Directory at openchat.line.me, browsable without login on 9 September 2026 (regional pages /jp, /th), keyword search for rooms and messages, 20+ categories, room cards with description, member count and last activity.
- Region-gated for joining: "only join OpenChats that are available in the country or region of your account"; from Europe the root page says OpenChat is unavailable and lists Japan, Taiwan, Thailand.
- Not end-to-end encrypted: LY Corporation's 2025 encryption report lists open chat under transport-layer encryption only.

## Tool verdicts (9 September 2026)
- LINE app search: use it, expect nulls.
- OpenChat directory: use it; browse from anywhere, join with a regional account.
- LINE VOOM public posts: use it; the only public record an individual leaves.
- Official account search: use it for named entities.
- OpenChat scrapers (Apify actor): partial; public metadata only, subject to LINE terms.
- Multi-platform lookup vendors: no documented LINE lookup found.

## What LY Corporation discloses
Transparency report H1 2025: 3,741 law-enforcement requests on LINE services in Japan (3,174 warrants, 481 inquiries, 65 suicidal-intent, 21 emergencies), 95.7 percent disclosed; Taiwan 953 requests, 99.69 percent disclosed; property crime 70.7 percent; requests "increasing due to the rise of investment and romance scams using social media". Letter Sealing content cannot be read by the servers.

## The LINE trail on Reddit
LINE IDs and OpenChat invitations are posted in r/japanlife, r/Thailand, gaming and seller threads and scam warnings, and are often deleted later. Free search: https://think-pol.com/tools/reddit-search?q=openchat.line.me ; then https://think-pol.com/tools/reddit-user-lookup on the posting account.

## What THINKPOL adds today
THINKPOL does not archive LINE. It holds 30 billion Reddit posts and comments since 2005, captured at publication, including content later deleted or removed, searchable under 300 ms from EU infrastructure: the open-web side of any LINE identifier.

Related: https://think-pol.com/wechat-osint , https://think-pol.com/telegram-osint , https://think-pol.com/osint-landscape

Source: https://think-pol.com/line-osint