Irish DPC: LinkedIn's Use of Personal Data for AI Training Acceptable ... For Now
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) won't take further regulatory action for the moment against LinkedIn for using personal data to train its generative AI model. That's because the platform has sufficiently addressed its concerns, the watchdog announced Friday. The DPC stressed, however, that it hasn't approved the use and will continue monitoring LinkedIn's GDPR compliance.
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LinkedIn notified the DPC in March of its intention to begin training its generative AI models in November using the personal data of members based in the EU/European Economic Area, the DPA noted. Its review of LinkedIn's data protection documentation discovered risks and other issues with the proposed processing, and the DPC recommended changes.
Informed of the issues, the company revised its plan by, among other things, giving users more transparency about the personal data it will use for model training, and reducing the scope of the personal data it will process, the DPC said.
LinkedIn also strengthened measures to prevent the personal data of those younger than 18 from being used, and to protect users from having their potentially sensitive information shared on certain LinkedIn groups collected.
The platform now has five months from the start of its processing to report to the DPC on how its measures and safeguards are working. Users should have received notification from LinkedIn advising them how, under the GDPR, to object to the use of their personal data for AI model training, the DPC said.
In October, French DPA CNIL posted instructions on how to prevent the use of personal data for AI model training on several platforms, including LinkedIn (see Ref:2510160022]).
The Dutch DPA and a privacy lawyer also warned in October that LinkedIn users must actively opt out of an AI setting or risk having the platform use their data for training (see 2510080010).