NEW UPDATE TO LINKEDIN SETTINGS YOU NEED TO CHECK
LinkedIn is using Aussie users’ data to train AI models, unless they change their settings to opt out.
A setting called ‘Data for Generative AI Improvement’ has been automatically switched on for users outside the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland, giving permission for LinkedIn and unnamed “affiliates” to “use your personal data and content you create” on the social network “for training content creation AI models”.
This can include using a person’s profile data or content in posts.
While users can switch off the default setting if they know about it, that will only stop the company and its affiliates from using your personal data or content to train models going forward but will not affect training that has already been done.
It was only last week, Meta admitted to scraping Australian adult users’ public data – like photos and posts on Facebook and Instagram dating back to 2007 – to train its generative AI models.
Meta’s privacy policy director Melinda Claybaugh appeared before an inquiry where she confirmed the process when pressed by senators.
Australian users have not been given the option to opt-out like users in Europe, where regulation is tougher.
Unless an Australian user had consciously set posts to private, the company scraped the data.
How LinkedIn uses your data to train AI
LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, says it uses generative AI models for “a variety of purposes,” including its AI-powered writing assistant to draft messages.
These AI models may be trained by LinkedIn or another provider, like Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service.
Greg Snapper, a spokesman for the company, told Forbes “We are not sending data back to OpenAI for them to train their models.” OpenAI is famously the creator of chatbot ChatGPT.
When users click to “learn more” about the ‘Data for Generative AI Improvement’ setting, LinkedIn explains: “This setting applies to training and finetuning generative AI models that are used to generate content (e.g. suggested posts or messages) and does not apply to LinkedIn’s or its affiliates’ development of AI models used for other purposes, such as models used to personalise your LinkedIn experience or models used for security, trust, or anti-abuse purposes.”
Elsewhere in its generative AI FAQs, LinkedIn claims it will “seek to minimise personal data in the data sets used to train the models” including using technology to redact or remove personal data from the training dataset.
A LinkedIn spokeswoman told news.com.au that the opt-out setting was because they believe “members should have the ability to exercise control over their data”.
“We’ve always used some form of automation in LinkedIn products, and we’ve always been clear that users have the choice about how their data is used,” the spokeswoman said.
“The reality of where we’re at today is a lot of people are looking for help to get that first draft of that resume, to help write the summary on their LinkedIn profile, to help craft messages to recruiters to get that next career opportunity.
“At the end of the day, people want that edge in their careers and what our gen-AI services do is help give them that assist.”
