LinkedIn is training AI models on your data

LinkedIn is training AI models on your data

Image: The Verge

If you’re on LinkedIn, then you should know that the social network has, without asking, opted accounts into training generative AI models. 404Media reports that LinkedIn introduced the new privacy setting and opt-out form before rolling out an updated privacy policy saying that data from the platform is being used to train AI models. As TechCrunch notes, it has since updated the policy.

We may use your personal data to improve, develop, and provide products and Services, develop and train artificial intelligence (AI) models, develop, provide, and personalize our Services, and gain insights with the help of AI, automated systems, and inferences, so that our Services can be more relevant and useful to you and others.

LinkedIn writes on a help page that it uses generative AI for purposes like writing assistant features. You can revoke permission by heading to the Data privacy tab in your account settings and clicking on “Data for Generative AI Improvement” to find the toggle. Turn it to “off” to opt-out.

According to 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 posted for its AI training says it uses “privacy enhancing technologies to redact or remove personal data” from its training sets, and that it doesn’t train its models on those who live in the EU, EEA, or Switzerland.

Screenshot: LinkedIn

If you see this, you’re in the right place for opting out.

That setting is for data used to train generative AI models, but LinkedIn has other machine learning tools at work for things like personalization and moderation that don’t generate content. To opt your data out of being used to train those, you’ll have to also fill out the LinkedIn Data Processing Objection Form.

LinkedIn’s apparent silent opt-in of all, or at least most, of its platform’s users comes only days after Meta admitted to having scraped non-private user data for model training going as far back as 2007.