LinkedIn sued for allegedly training AI models with private messages without consent

LinkedIn Premium customers are suing the social media platform, alleging that it shared their private messages with third parties without their consent in order to train artificial intelligence models.

Last August, LinkedIn “ostensibly” offered users the ability to enable a new privacy feature dictating whether their personal data could be shared, but turned permissions on by default, alleges the proposed class action lawsuit, filed in a California federal court. 

The change was not communicated in the social media giant’s terms of service or privacy policy before it was made. Silicon Valley-based LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.

After press reports disclosing the fact that users were quietly opted-in to the sharing, consumers loudly complained, prompting LinkedIn to update its privacy policy advising its customers of the practice. 

However, the company “buried a crucial disclosure” in a frequently asked questions (FAQ) feature hyperlinked within the privacy policy, the lawsuit alleges, stating that users’ messages could also be used to train AI models by an unnamed third party provider, potentially outside of Microsoft. 

That disclosure, allegedly made only in the FAQ, suggests that LinkedIn was “aware its previous terms did not authorize these practices and was attempting to avoid further scrutiny,” the lawsuit says. Users can only navigate to the FAQ page containing this disclosure by reading the privacy policy and clicking on a link, the lawsuit says.

Because LinkedIn also acknowledged that the users’ data was shared with third party “affiliates” within its "corporate structure,” the lawsuit contends that users’ private messages could be feeding other Microsoft AI models.

LinkedIn also disclosed in the FAQ that the AI model training that had already been powered by users’ messages could not be reversed, the lawsuit alleges.

The platform “gives up the game with this statement—it indicates that LinkedIn users’ personal information is already embedded in generative AI models and will not be deleted, regardless of whether they opt out of future disclosures,” the lawsuit alleges.

A LinkedIn spokesperson emailed a statement saying, the claims are false and have “no merit.”