[German]Brief information for users of LinkedIn, which has been part of Microsoft for several years. Starting November 3, 2025, Microsoft will use members' data through its AI "to improve their content generation." So if you are a LinkedIn member, you should urgently choose the opt-out option.
A brief look at LinkedIn
Founded on December 28, 2002, in Mountain View, California, by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly, and Jean-Luc Vaillant, LinkedIn is a social network for maintaining existing business contacts and establishing new business connections. LinkedIn is available in 26 languages and, according to its own statements, has over 1 billion users in 200 countries and regions. As of 2023, LinkedIn is used by 202 million people in the US, 156 million users in Europe, 105 million people in India, and 65 million in Brazil.
The company has been part of the Microsoft Group since December 8, 2016. I reported on this in my German blog post Microsoft kauft LinkedIn … but from today's perspective, I have to correct my assessment that "Redmond will ruin LinkedIn" from an economic point of view. They have grown from 400 million users to 1 billion. In my opinion, however, Microsoft has messed up LinkedIn in terms of security and data protection. Excerpt from my (translated) blog post at the time:
Well, somehow the whole thing is catching up with me again. video2brain, with its video training courses, was taken over some time ago (via Lynda.com) by LinkedIn, which is now part of Microsoft. I just received a "contract" in which old contracts are to be converted to the new LinkedIn terms and conditions – and I was offered a 1-year premium membership with LinkedIn. Since I no longer do video training, I decided not to sign the contract (for internal reasons) and declined the premium membership – I guess I made the right decision.
So I never signed a contract with LinkedIn and never created a profile – but I was affected by the data leaks that plagued LinkedIn (see list of links at the end of the post) with my professional email address. And I also received the email about the training course mentioned below. LinkedIn has been notorious for years for participants being lured into job offers by fraudsters and ripped off via the career network.
Microsoft uses LinkedIn for AI training
This week, I got notified by LinkedIn that they will uses user content to train Microsoft AI. Here is the German notification.
The email informed me, that, starting November 3, 2025, (Microsoft's) LinkedIn will also use data from members in the EU to improve its AI for generating content. The promise is that this will optimize the recipient's experience and better connect LinkedIn members with job offers. This could help HR managers find and contact members more easily. In addition, members would be supported in creating content such as profile updates, messages, and posts.
The information evaluated includes details from the user's LinkedIn profile and public content that users create on LinkedIn. Private messages are not affected by the AI evaluation.
Anyone who does not want their data to be used in this way can select the opt-out option in the settings at any time.
Anyone who has already submitted the form to object to data processing should check their settings to ensure that their opt-out decision is displayed.
Oops, I don't have a profile, do I?
So much for the technical side. From a practical point of view, I personally wondered how to do this—I had never actively set up a LinkedIn profile myself and had not been able to log in with my email address in the past.
While writing this post, I tried again and was actually able to access LinkedIn via my Microsoft account using SSO. I immediately received a warning that a new, unknown device had accessed my LinkedIn account – confirming that I had never logged into this account from my desktop before.
Of course, the AI option was set, but an inspection of the profile revealed that it was empty, as expected. Only a "location" was entered in the profile, probably due to internet access – and, of course, the email address that had migrated from video2brain to LinkedIn via Lynda.com as "booty." And that was also set to public. I then set the profile to private and temporarily deactivated it. This episode shows me once again the "shady methods" used by LinkedIn and Microsoft.
You should use the opt-out option or leave LinkedIn
Currently, LinkedIn users within the European Union and Switzerland are still treated somewhat "better," and LinkedIn does not (yet) use personal data stored by Microsoft. But the course has been set for LinkedIn to have free rein in the future.
In this context, I received another assessment from SurfShark on September 19, 2025, entitled "Urgently opt out: LinkedIn will train AI with EU and UK user data." It also points out that LinkedIn will use data from its users in the EU and the UK from November 3, 2025, to train AI models to generate content that improves the user experience and offers members better opportunities.
"When AI learns from its users' public posts, photos, and texts, this is an example of gross misconduct and misuse of user data. Generative AI should not be trained with user data, and this underscores why regulations for AI are urgently needed," Karolis Kaciulis, senior systems engineer at Surfshark, is quoted as saying in the statement.
Karolis Kaciulis explains that, especially in Europe, where the GDPR protects users' rights, personal data belongs to the individual concerned, not to companies or AI systems. He points out: "Sharing user profiles with generative AI can lead to them being stored, analyzed, and used without the full control of users, which carries the risk of targeted manipulation, identity theft, or abuse." What AI learns from your personal data cannot be unlearned.
"Gen-AI systems are based on huge data sets from the internet, without transparency, accountability, or the possibility for individuals to opt out. This is in direct contradiction to the data protection-oriented legislation currently being worked on by the EU, and that needs to change," said K. Kaciulis.
"If we want AI not to use our data, we have to stop development and start from scratch, as there is no way to remove people's data from AI algorithms. These systems need to be redesigned in line with new legal standards so that AI respects users' rights in data collection and with full transparency," he argues.
SurfShark's review of App Store information revealed that LinkedIn collects 26 of the 35 data types defined by Apple, making it one of the consumer apps with a strikingly high volume of personal information collection. According to the information in the App Store, the data used for third-party advertising includes: usage data, location, contacts, identifiers, contact information, financial information, user content, and history. This really only leads to one conclusion: "Get off LinkedIn"—right?
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