On October 3, 2024, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) issued a statement on its concerns about LinkedIn Corporation's privacy policy update to allow the use of personal data and content created by its users to train its generative artificial intelligence (AI) models for content creation. The PCPD also noted concerns about whether LinkedIn's default opt-in setting for using users' personal data to train generative AI models correctly reflects users' choices.

Consequently, the PCPD announced that it has written to LinkedIn to investigate this matter further and advised LinkedIn users to be aware of the updates in LinkedIn's privacy policy and understand the relevant policy in order to decide if they should agree to allow their personal data to be used for training AI models, and if not, to revoke the permission by changing the default settings.

You can read the press release here.

Update: October 23, 2024

PCPD announces LinkedIn's decision to pause use of personal data to train AI

On October 15, 2024, the PCPD announced LinkedIn's decision to pause the use of personal data from Hong Kong users for training generative AI models. The PCPD announced that LinkedIn's decision followed the PCPD's expression of concern on October 3, 2024, regarding LinkedIn's default opt-in setting, which allowed user personal data and content to be used for generative AI training without explicit consent.

Following this, the PCPD noted that LinkedIn responded on October 11, 2024, confirming that it had paused the use of Hong Kong users' personal data for the mentioned purpose while the PCPD's concerns were being addressed.

You can read the press release here.