Japan inquires about S. Korea’s cooperation in probe into Naver

The Japanese government has asked whether Seoul can cooperate in its inquiry into Naver Corp. over last year's personal data leak from Line Yahoo Corp., a Japanese affiliate of the South Korean tech giant, a government agency here said Thursday. According to the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), its Japanese counterpart asked via email last month whether the PIPC can cooperate in an investigation into Naver's cloud system, which is in charge of managing Line Yahoo's servers. Line Yahoo, the operator of Japan's popular chat app Line and internet portal Yahoo Japan, is majority owned by A Holdings, a joint venture between Naver and Japan's SoftBank. Last November, Naver's cloud system was infected with malware due to a cyber attack, resulting in the leak of about 440,000 items of personal data from Line Yahoo, which shares some internal systems with the South Korean internet company. Then the Japanese government reportedly asked Line Yahoo to submit specific countermeasures by July 1. An of ficial at the PIPC said the commission has yet to respond to the email from Japan. "It's true that we received an email asking for cooperation, but it was not an official letter but rather an inquiry from a working-level official," he said. The PIPC is reportedly contacting relevant government agencies over how to reply to the Japanese email. The latest development comes amid rumors that the Japanese government was moving to press Naver to reduce its stake in Line Yahoo. Source: Yonhap News Agency