Did you know that LinkedIn™ has begun using our personal data and our content to train its generative AI? Without our knowledge or consent?
This raises serious data privacy issues and has the LinkedIn™ community in an uproar – rightly so!
The issue is that LinkedIn™ has added a tab named ‘Data for generative AI improvement’ to its Data privacy section of Privacy & Settings. This gives permission for LinkedIn™ to use our data and content not just to train its own AI but for its ‘affiliates’ (which include LinkedIn™’s owner Microsoft) to do so too. Worse, by default this is On.
LinkedIn™ has not informed members of this which means many millions of accounts’ data will be raided without the knowledge of the owners.
Even for those who learn about this and switch it off immediately, it may be too late and our data already scraped.
The information that could now be in LinkedIn™’s (and its affiliates’ hands) include your posts and articles, how frequently you use LinkedIn™, your language preference, and any feedback you may have provided to the company. It is likely to be much wider than just this. It might even include sensitive business information shared by direct message within the platform.
It also raises the question: if LinkedIn™ can so summarily grab our data, how secure are our passport details with the organisation that harvests them to provide profile verification? (In most of the world that’s Persona.) Surely the data grab goes in both directions?
LinkedIn™ is bringing in a new privacy policy in November which may well make sharing data a condition of setting up an account. And, by extension, a condition of keeping your account for existing members.
None of this encourages confidence in LinkedIn™. Their secrecy has long been a thorn in the side of members and this new move will not help reverse that.