LinkedIn is a professional networking platform that allows users to create profiles, connect with other professionals, join groups, follow companies, and apply for jobs. While LinkedIn profiles are intended to showcase professional experiences, skills, and accomplishments, they often contain personal information as well.
What constitutes personal data?
Personal data refers to any information that can be used to identify an individual. This includes obvious identifiers like name, email address, and phone number. But it also encompasses less obvious information like location, IP address, browsing history, and more.
Under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other data privacy laws, the following types of data are generally considered personal information:
- Name
- Home or work address
- Email address
- Telephone number
- Age or date of birth
- Location data
- Online identifiers like IP address and cookies
- Cultural or ethnic background
- Physical characteristics
- Political beliefs
- Sexual orientation
- Medical information
- Financial information
- Genetic data
- Biometric data
So any information that could potentially identify an individual user is typically considered personal data under data protection regulations.
What personal information can be found on LinkedIn?
Here are some of the main types of personal data that users often include on their LinkedIn profiles:
- Full name
- Profile photo
- Location information like city, state/province, and country
- Email address
- Phone number
- Employers and academic institutions attended
- Job titles and professional experience
- Skills, interests, volunteer work, and other expertise
- Links to personal website or blog
- Recommendations from connections
In addition to information directly provided by the user, LinkedIn profiles may reveal other personal details like approximate age or date of birth based on graduation dates and work history.
Does LinkedIn use or share personal data?
Yes, LinkedIn does use and share some personal information from user profiles, primarily for advertising purposes. According to their privacy policy, LinkedIn may share information like name, photo, employers, job titles, skills, and general location with third parties to show targeted ads. They may also use contact information like email addresses and phone numbers internally for communications related to the LinkedIn platform.
Here are some of the main ways LinkedIn might use or share personal data:
- Using name, photo, job title, and skills to display targeted ads
- Sharing name, profile photo, current employer with other users as part of endorsements or recommendations
- Using location information to inform advertisers where to show geographic-specific ads
- Combining browsing data with profile information for analytics purposes and to improve ad targeting
- Selling anonymized and aggregated data to third party advertisers and analytics providers
- Sharing data with parent company Microsoft to sync with Microsoft products and services
- Disclosing information to third parties during mergers, acquisitions, or bankruptcy proceedings
However, LinkedIn’s privacy policy states that they do not sell personal data directly to third parties or allow third parties other than their service providers to collect data via their sites and apps. Users can also adjust their profile visibility settings and ad preferences to limit data usage and sharing.
Does LinkedIn allow users to delete or correct personal data?
Yes, LinkedIn does allow users to request deletion or correction of personal data under most circumstances. Their privacy policy states:
“You can request deletion of your personal data by contacting us and we will take steps to delete your personal data in accordance with applicable laws.”
“You can request correction of your inaccurate or incomplete personal data by contacting us. We will take steps to correct this information in accordance with applicable laws.”
Users can submit data deletion or correction requests through LinkedIn’s privacy form located in their account settings. However, LinkedIn may retain some personal data if there is a lawful basis for doing so, such as for legal claims, analytics, or fraud prevention.
Users also have options to directly edit or delete some information on their own profiles. This includes:
- Editing profile information like current job title and employer
- Updating skills, interests, volunteer work, and expertise
- Changing profile and cover photos
- Deleting current positions from work history
- Removing profile views, endorsements, and recommendations
But options for deleting a LinkedIn account entirely are more limited. Users can only deactivate their accounts, which hides their profile but doesn’t permanently delete data. Full account deletion may be possible through a data erasure request.
Conclusion
In summary, LinkedIn profiles do contain substantial personal information, and LinkedIn does use and share some of that data for advertising and analytics purposes. However, users have options to limit data usage, request data deletion or correction, and directly edit or remove some profile information.
Maintaining separation between personal and professional online presences may be advisable for those concerned about privacy. But overall, LinkedIn takes reasonable steps to allow users to control their data sharing compared to some other platforms.
As with any website or application that stores user data, it’s important to exercise caution in how much personal information you opt to make public on your profile. Regularly reviewing and adjusting profile settings and ad preferences can help maximize privacy.
Sources:
- https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
- https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/ask/DDG-request#how-do-i-request-deletion
- https://gdpr.eu/what-is-personal-data/
- https://www.findlaw.com/injury/privacy-laws/what-is-personally-identifiable-information–or-pii-.html
- https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/what-you-need-to-know-about-linkedins-privacy-policies/