LinkedIn Trains AI Models on Your Data
LinkedIn selected accounts to train generative AI models without obtaining permission from the account owners.
The Microsoft-owned professional social platform reportedly introduced the new privacy setting and opt-out form ahead of rolling out an updated privacy policy that says data from the platform is used to train AI models.
LinkedIn has since updated the policy to say: “We may use your personal data to improve, develop and provide products and services, develop and train artificial intelligence models, develop, provide and personalize our Services, and gain insights with the help of artificial intelligence, automated systems and reasoning, so that our Services are more relevant and useful to you and others.”
LinkedIn wrote on its help page that it uses generative AI for purposes such as writing assistant features, and you can revoke permission by heading to the Data Privacy tab in your account settings and clicking on “ Data to improve generative AI ” to find the “Use my data to train AI models to generate content” option that can be turned off to opt out.
According to the platform, opting out means that LinkedIn and its affiliates will not use your personal data or content via LinkedIn to train models in the future, although this does not affect training that has already occurred.
The FAQ published for AI Training says it uses privacy-enhancing techniques, including editing and removing information, to limit personal information contained in datasets used to train generative AI.
It also says it doesn't train its models on data from those living in the European Union, the European Economic Area, or Switzerland, likely due to data privacy rules in those regions.
“As with most features on LinkedIn, when you interact with our platform, we collect, use or process data about your use of the platform, including personal data. This may include your use of generative AI or other AI features, your posts and articles, how often you use the LinkedIn platform, language preferences, and any feedback you may have provided to our teams,” the FAQ page adds.
The “Use my data to train AI models to generate content” option is for data used to train generative AI models, although LinkedIn uses other machine learning tools that don’t generate content for things like personalization and moderation.
In order to opt out of the use of your data to train other machine learning tools, you must fill out the LinkedIn data processing objection form .
LinkedIn's new move comes just days after Meta admitted it had been collecting non-private user data to train models since 2007.
