EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorMessagingHeadquarters: JP

Line: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

LINE is a messaging and communication app that lets users make free calls and send free messages. It offers text messaging, voice and video calls, group chats, stickers and official channels, and forms part of a wider service ecosystem that includes payments and news. LINE is available through the App Store and Google Play and is delivered as a hosted service by LY Corporation, known as Line Corporation until 2023. According to Wikipedia, end-to-end encryption has been enabled by default since July 2016.

LY Corporation is headquartered in Tokyo. It is owned through A Holdings, a joint venture of SoftBank Corporation and Naver Corporation, which holds the majority of Z Holdings, the parent of LY. The software is not open source. According to Wikipedia, user data has been held on servers in Japan and South Korea, with a planned move to Japan. No publicly confirmed storage location in the EU was found. For a European organisation this means that data falls under foreign jurisdiction and that storage location and transfers need separate assessment.

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Sovereignty score
42 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-250
    Headquartered outside the EU (JP)
  • Data residency SOV-350
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, OTHER)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-340
    Key management with a non-European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-630
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 5, 2026
HeadquartersJP (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionYes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingEU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
CategoryMessaging
TypeProduct
Websiteline.me ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Line

The European alternatives to Line come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

21 European Messaging vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Line

Line is headquartered in JP, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor.

Line hosts data in EU, OTHER. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Line is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Line together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Line?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Line include Balsio, Berty and Conversations (XMPP). On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Line?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Line include Berty, Conversations (XMPP), Delta Chat, Dino and Gajim. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Line GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Line is headquartered in JP (OTHER) and hosts data in EU, OTHER. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 5, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Messaging

Messaging: Personal messaging — chat, group conversations, media sharing. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

Also in this category

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8 European alternatives to Line — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score