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Microsoft is finding itself in hot water this week, after its business-focused social media platform LinkedIn was hit with a proposed class action lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday night in the Northern District of California by plaintiff Alessandro De La Torre on behalf of millions of LinkedIn Premium customers.
The Premium customers allege LinkedIn disclosed their private messages to third parties without permission to train generative artificial intelligence models.
It comes after LinkedIn had agreed in September 2024 to suspend its use of UK user data to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) models after concerns were expressed by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.
The ICO at the time said it was ‘pleased’ by Redmond’s response.
It had been alleged that a setting was added to opt out of the scheme, but users are opted in by default, meaning the data will be used unless users are aware of it and manually opt out.
Besides the United Kingdom, LinkedIn had also exempted customers in Canada, the EU, EEA, Switzerland, Hong Kong, or mainland China from having their LinkedIn data used “to train content-generating AI models.”
Now according to the lawsuit filed this week, the LinkedIn Premium customers allege LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting last August that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data.
Customers reportedly said LinkedIn then discreetly updated its privacy policy on 18 September to say data could be used to train AI models, and in a “frequently asked questions” section said opting out “does not affect training that has already taken place.”
The Complaint alleges that this attempt to “cover its tracks” suggests LinkedIn was fully aware it violated customers’ privacy and its promise to use personal data only to support and improve its platform, in order to minimise public scrutiny and legal fallout.
“LinkedIn breached its contractual promises by disclosing its Premium customers’ private messages to third parties to train generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) models,” the lawsuit alleges. “Given its role as a professional social media network, these communications include incredibly sensitive and potentially life-altering information about employment, intellectual property, compensation, and other personal matters.”
“When it was publicly revealed that LinkedIn had unilaterally disclosed its users’ data for these purposes, there was swift and harsh public backlash,” the lawsuit alleged. “LinkedIn responded the same day by discreetly modifying one of its privacy policies to account for AI-related data sharing and stated that users could choose to “opt out” of future disclosures for these purposes.”
“But the damage was already done, and LinkedIn has not offered to delete the data from the existing AI models or retrain them to eliminate their reliance on the disclosed information,” the lawsuit alleged.
LinkedIn itself has denied the allegations in various media reports, with a LinkedIn spokesperson stating “These are false claims with no merit.”
LinkedIn has had mixed results with lawsuits over the years.
In 2015 LinkedIn had paid $1.25m to settle a lawsuit after a security breach in 2012 had compromised 6.5 million user passwords.
Then in December 2021 a lawsuit that had alleged LinkedIn had inflated its advertising metrics for video ads watched was dismissed by US judge.
But in July 2024 LinkedIn agreed to pay $6.6 million to settle advertisers’ claims that the company inflated user engagement metrics to overcharge for video advertisements.
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