LinkedIn has faced criticism for silently opting users into its generative AI model training without explicit consent. The social networking platform introduced the new privacy setting and opt-out form only after updating its privacy policy to disclose data usage for AI training.
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While LinkedIn claims to use privacy-enhancing technologies to protect personal data in its training sets, the company’s decision to opt users in by default has raised concerns. Users can opt out by heading to the Data privacy tab in their account settings and disabling the “Data for Generative AI Improvement” toggle.
However, this only applies to future training and does not affect data that has already been used. To opt out of data used for other machine learning purposes, users must fill out the LinkedIn Data Processing Objection Form.
LinkedIn’s actions come just days after Meta admitted to scraping non-private user data for AI training since 2007. This incident further highlights the growing concerns about how social media platforms handle user data and privacy in the age of AI.
