Privacy Commissioner’s Office Reminds Users of LinkedIn to Beware of the Use of Their Personal Data for Training of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) noted that employment-oriented social media platform LinkedIn has recently updated its privacy policy to allow LinkedIn to use the personal data and content created by its users on LinkedIn to train its generative AI models for content creation, with the relevant setting for consent to such use enabled by default.

LinkedIn's privacy policy update has aroused concerns of data protection authorities in other jurisdictions. The PCPD is also concerned about whether LinkedIn's default opt-in setting for using users' personal data to train generative AI models correctly reflects users' choices. The PCPD has therefore written to LinkedIn to enquire into the matter.

The Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Ms Ada CHUNG Lai-ling, reminds that LinkedIn users should beware of the updates in LinkedIn's privacy policy and understand the relevant policy in order to decide if they agree to allow LinkedIn to use their personal data for training AI models. If users of LinkedIn are unwilling to authorise LinkedIn to use their personal data for training generative AI models, they can revoke the permission by following the steps (https://www.linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/categories/privacy) outlined below to change the default settings:

1. Go to the "Data privacy" section in users' account settings, then select "Data for Generative AI Improvement" to find the toggle switch.

2. Turn off the "Use my data for training content creation AI models" option to revoke permission.

LinkedIn's recent update on its privacy policy (extract)

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