LinkedIn will share user data with Microsoft and AI Training affiliates. You will need to opt out before the deadline as it is surrounded by “legitimate interest.”
Microsoft has made a massive investment in ChatGpt creator Openai, and as we know, as more data feeds into large language models (LLM), there are more useful answers that AI chatbots can offer. This explains why LinkedIn wants your data, but not how it went.
Using personal data to improve AI and personalize products will always raise privacy concerns and expect much lower participation rates if users need to sign up. The problem in this case is that it is already opted in by default and the data is being used up to the point where it opts out.
To opt out, you will need to go to LinkedIn Privacy Settings.
- Go to Settings and Privacy > Data Privacy > Data for Generic AI Improvements.
- Switch and use data to train content creation AI models.
- Optionally, submit a formal opposition to data processing objection request. To do this, go to the Data Processing Objection form and select it. Opposes processing to train AI models that generate contentand submit the request. Non-members may also challenge any personal data shared by members on LinkedIn.
You also need to check and clean up your old or sensitive posts, profiles, or resumes to reduce exposure. Again, opting out will only stop future training on new data. We have not withdrawn any data that is already in use.
The data that LinkedIn may share is quite extensive.
- Profile dataincludes your name, photograph, current position, past work experience, education, location, skills, publications, patents, approvals, and recommendations.
- Job-related dataresumes, answers to screening questions, application details, and more.
- Posted contentposts, articles, polls, contributions, comments, etc.
- feedbackIncludes the evaluations and responses you provide.
Who was influenced and how?
There are several contradictory statements about the countries where new updates to LinkedIn terms of terms will be applied. Members of the EU, EEA, Switzerland, Canada and Hong Kong must opt out until November 3, 2025, according to the official statement. (EEA is EU Plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway). Other sources say that UK users are also affected. If you have that setting and don't want to participate, I recommend setting “Use my data…”.
Reportedly, a quarter of the more than 1 billion LinkedIn users are in the US, allowing them to provide a lot of valuable data. In the term update, US users are included in the following sections:
“From November 3, 2025, we will be sharing additional data about local members with affiliate Microsoft to enable Microsoft to view more personalized and relevant ads. This data includes LinkedIn profile data, feed activity data and ad engagement data.
You can check those settings and act in a way that you like the data you want to process.
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