If you’re a LinkedIn user, your data is being used to train AI models without your explicit permission. According to 404Media report, LinkedIn added a new privacy setting and opt-out form before updating its policy to reflect this. TechCrunch confirms that the policy has since been revised.
On LinkedIn’s help page, the company announces that it uses generative AI for writing assistant features. You can disallow to use of your data from the Data privacy tab in your account settings and click on “Data for Generative AI Improvement” to find the toggle. Simply turn it “off”.
As per LinkedIn: “Opting out means that LinkedIn and its affiliates won’t use your personal data or content on LinkedIn to train models going forward, but does not affect training that has already taken place.”
The FAQ for AI training states that LinkedIn uses “privacy-enhancing technologies” to remove or edit personal data from its training sets. It also specifies that the models are not trained using data from users in the EU, EEA, or Switzerland.
The setting you’ve applied only prevents LinkedIn from using your data to train its generative AI models. However, LinkedIn still uses other machine learning tools for personalization and moderation that don’t involve content generation. To ensure your data isn’t used at all, you’ll need to complete the LinkedIn Data Processing Objection Form.
LinkedIn’s quiet opt-in of its users for AI training comes just days after Meta revealed it had been scraping non-private user data for model training since 2007.
