A US lawsuit filed on behalf of LinkedIn Premium users accuses the social media platform of sharing their private messages with other companies to train artificial intelligence (AI) models.
It alleges that in August last year, the world’s largest professional social networking site “quietly” introduced a privacy setting, automatically enrolling users in a program that allows third parties to use their personal data to train the AI.
It also accuses the Microsoft-owned company of covering up its actions a month later by changing its privacy policy to indicate that user information could be disclosed for AI training purposes.
A LinkedIn spokesperson told BBC News that “these are false, baseless claims.
The lawsuit was filed in a California federal court on behalf of a LinkedIn Premium user and “all others” in a similar situation.
The filing also states that LinkedIn has changed its “frequently asked questions” section to indicate that users can choose not to share data for AI purposes, but that this will not affect training already provided.
“LinkedIn’s actions…indicate a pattern of attempting to cover their tracks,” the lawsuit says.
“This behavior suggests that LinkedIn was fully aware that it had violated its contractual promises and privacy standards and that it sought to minimize public scrutiny.”
According to an email that LinkedIn sent to its users last year, LinkedIn did not allow the sharing of user data for AI purposes in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area and Switzerland.
Additional reporting by Lily Jamali
