Could the person you are talking to on LINE actually be a scary person? Surprising Identity Common to People Whose Registered Account Name Is Not Their Real Name

Most of the population now uses LINE, which is said to have 95 million users; the free phone call and text message sending service is convenient, and many people probably use it almost every day.

Many people register their account name as their real name and use a photo of themselves, their family, or their pets as their profile picture. However, in rare cases, there are people whose account name is a single romaji character, a single hiragana character, or some kind of symbol. Many of you may have actually seen such accounts.

Why do they use such names, even though it is difficult to know who the account is and it is annoying to those around them?

One reason is that some people in the water business use such names to make their identities a little less obvious. We interviewed Ms. K., who actually works as an office clerk during the day and at a cabaret club at night.

If I only work at the cabaret club, there is no problem if I use my real name as the name of my LINE account, but I don’t want people at my lunchtime job to find out, and if a customer asks me to give them my LINE account, I can’t refuse. I don’t want my real name to be revealed at that time, so I use my initials for my account name.”

She says that she can’t use her real name in her profile because she has to wear two hobbies so that people around her don’t find out her real name.

She could avoid such difficulties if she were to carry two smartphones, one for work and one for private use, but she doesn’t go out of her way to spend the money just for that purpose.

In addition, people who belong to antisocial forces such as gangsters and semi-gangsters also use one romaji or one hiragana character for their LINE account names to make their pasts and identities less obvious.

Why do they not use their real names? The reason, they say, is to avoid passing on any information when they are caught by the police.

If there is evidence of a crime in their LINE history, their contact person could be arrested as an accomplice. If the account name is the real name, it would give the police a clue. In order to reduce the possibility of being arrested as much as possible, they register a name that is difficult to recognize.

In some cases, people who have been arrested also use such an illegible name. When we interviewed a person who had actually served time in prison, he expressed a concern unique to former inmates.

A few years ago, a newspaper reported a case I had committed. Since it was published along with my real name, if you look it up on the Internet, you will find my name and the case. Fortunately, my name is not that unusual, so people don’t know what I did in the past, but I still want to hide my real name.

Even if he is released from prison and atones for his crime, the news that he committed the crime will not disappear. Nowadays, it is easy to access past newspaper articles on the Internet. Although the person in question has come to terms with the fact that it was inevitable, he or she may have no choice but to hide his or her profile because his or her real name is a stumbling block as he or she makes a fresh start in life.

LINE is an excellent communication tool, but it does not reveal the true identity of the person using it. It seems that people with special circumstances are trying to hide their true identities through trial and error.