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Tag: LinkedIn

  • LinkedIn Accused Of Using sing Private Messages To Train rain AI

    LinkedIn Accused Of Using sing Private Messages To Train rain AI

    A US lawsuit filed on behalf of LinkedIn Premium users accuses the social media platform of sharing their private messages with other companies to train artificial intelligence (AI) models.

    It alleges that in August last year, the world’s largest professional social networking website “quietly” introduced a privacy setting, automatically opting users into a programme that allowed third parties to use their personal data to train AI.

    It also accuses the Microsoft-owned company of concealing its actions a month later by changing its privacy policy to say user information could be disclosed for AI training purposes.

    A LinkedIn spokesperson told BBC News that “these are false claims with no merit”.

    The filing also said LinkedIn changed its ‘frequently asked questions’ section to say that users could choose not to share data for AI purposes but that doing so would not affect training that had already taken place.

    “LinkedIn’s actions… indicate a pattern of attempting to cover its tracks,” the lawsuit said.

    “This behaviour suggests that LinkedIn was fully aware that it had violated its contractual promises and privacy standards and aimed to minimise public scrutiny”.

    The lawsuit was filed in a California federal court on behalf of a LinkedIn Premium user and “all others” in a similar situation.

    It seeks $1,000 (£812) per user for alleged violations of the US federal Stored Communications Act as well as an unspecified amount for breach of contract and California’s unfair competition law.

    According to an email LinkedIn sent to its users last year, it has not enabled user data sharing for AI purposes in the UK, the European Economic Area and Switzerland.

    LinkedIn has more than one billion users around the world, with almost a quarter of them in the US.

    In 2023, the company attracted $1.7bn in revenue from premium subscriptions.

    It has also said that the number of premium subscribers has been growing rapidly as it continues to add more AI features.

    (BBC)

  • LinkedIn Hacked, Data Of 700M Users Being Sold On Dark Web

    LinkedIn Hacked, Data Of 700M Users Being Sold On Dark Web

    LinkedIn data of over 700 million users has reportedly been exposed in a new breach. LinkedIn has a total of 756 million users, which means that the data of more than 92 percent of its users has been compromised in this new breach. The new dataset obtained by an unknown hacker is said to consist of personal details of LinkedIn users, including phone numbers, physical addresses, geolocation data, and inferred salaries. In April, LinkedIn confirmed a data breach affecting 500 million subscribers wherein personal details like email address, phone number, workplace information, full name, account IDs, links to their social media accounts, and gender details were listed online.

    According to LinkedIn, it did not face a data breach, but rather the information was gained from scraping the network. In an emailed statement, LinkedIn told Gadgets 360: “While we’re still investigating this issue, our initial analysis indicates that the dataset includes information scraped from LinkedIn as well as information obtained from other sources. This was not a LinkedIn data breach and our investigation has determined that no private LinkedIn member data was exposed. Scraping data from LinkedIn is a violation of our Terms of Service and we are constantly working to ensure our members’ privacy is protected.”

    The new dataset of 700 million users is also on sale on the Dark Web, wherein the hacker has posted a sample set of 1 million users for buyers. RestorePrivacy was the first to spot this listing on the Dark Web and the sample data was cross-verified by 9to5Google. The sample dataset that has been published on the Dark Web includes user information like email addresses, full names, phone numbers, physical addresses, geolocation records, LinkedIn username and profile URL, inferred salaries, personal and professional experience/ background, gender, and social media accounts and usernames.

    9to5Google reached out directly to the hacker who says that the data was obtained by exploiting the LinkedIn API to harvest information that people upload to the site. The dataset does not include passwords, but the information is still very valuable and could amount to identity theft or phishing attempts.

    To protect your data, it is important to look at the safety, security, and privacy settings of the apps you use and make sure that these are set up properly. Ensure that you have set up a strong password and indulge in the habit of changing them frequently. Also, enable two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever available, and do not accept connections, especially on LinkedIn and Facebook, from unknown people. Subscribe to sites like Have I Been Pwned for notifications if your email address is part of a data breach.