Is Microsoft Using My LinkedIn Profile to Train Its AI, and How Can I Stop It?

My LinkedIn Data Is Being Used for AI—What Are the Dangers and How Do I Opt Out?

Your professional life is built on your experience, your connections, and your reputation. You share parts of your career story on platforms like LinkedIn to find jobs and connect with peers. Now, that story is about to be used for something new. Microsoft, the company that owns LinkedIn, has decided to use the content you post to teach its artificial intelligence (AI). This change begins on November 3, 2025.

This is a big deal for anyone with a LinkedIn account. Your public information—your work history, your posts, your skills—will become training material. The company says this will help make its services better. But it also means your data will be used in ways you never intended. You have a choice to make, and it is important to act quickly if you want to protect your information.

What This Means for Your LinkedIn Account

Think of AI as a student. To learn, it needs to read a lot of information. Microsoft wants its AI to learn from the real-world content created by millions of professionals on LinkedIn. The goal is to make the AI better at tasks like writing posts, updating profiles, and suggesting job connections.

When an AI learns from your content, it copies patterns from your writing style, your job descriptions, and the professional experiences you share. Microsoft says this will help you by creating better tools on LinkedIn. For example, it might help a hiring manager write a job description that better matches your profile, or it could help you write a post that gets more attention.

However, this raises important questions about your privacy. The content you created to showcase your professional self will be fed into a massive digital brain. Once the AI learns from your data, that knowledge cannot be easily taken back.

What information will be used?

• Your Public Profile: Everything on your profile that is visible to the public. This includes your name, job title, work history, education, and location.
• Your Public Content: Any articles, posts, comments, and photos you have shared publicly on the platform.

What information is safe?

• Private Messages: Your direct messages with other users will not be used for this AI training.
• Private Information: Any part of your profile you have set to private should not be included.

How to Prevent Your Data From Being Used

You have the right to refuse this use of your data. LinkedIn has provided an “opt-out” option. Choosing this option tells the company not to use your public information for its AI training programs. It is very important to do this if you are not comfortable with your data being used this way.

Finding this setting can be tricky. Here is a simple guide to help you navigate to the right place and change your settings.

1. Log In to Your LinkedIn Account: Go to the LinkedIn website or open the app and sign in.
2. Go to Your Settings: Click on your profile picture (usually in the top right corner). A menu will appear. Select “Settings & Privacy.”
3. Find Data Privacy: On the settings page, look for a section called “Data Privacy.” This is where you control how your information is used.
4. Locate the AI Training Option: Inside the Data Privacy section, you will need to find the specific setting related to AI content generation. It may be worded as “Using your public content and profile data to improve AI capabilities” or something similar.
5. Choose to Opt-Out: The setting will likely be a simple “Yes” or “No” choice. It will be turned on by default. You must change it to “No” to prevent your data from being used.

Even if you believe you have opted out in the past, it is a good idea to check again. Companies sometimes update their settings or introduce new policies that reset your previous choices. Make sure your decision to opt out is correctly saved.

A Look at LinkedIn and Microsoft

LinkedIn started on December 28, 2002. It was created as a professional network, a place to keep business contacts and find new career opportunities. It has grown into a global giant. Today, over one billion people across 200 countries use it. In 2023, there were 202 million users in the United States, 156 million in Europe, 105 million in India, and 65 million in Brazil.

On December 8, 2016, Microsoft bought LinkedIn. At the time, some people worried that Microsoft would not manage the platform well. From a business perspective, those worries were unfounded. LinkedIn grew from 400 million users to over a billion under Microsoft’s ownership. However, from a security and data privacy viewpoint, the story is different. The platform has faced problems with data leaks and scams, where criminals use fake job offers to trick users.

This history is important. It shows that while the platform is useful for careers, it also has a track record of data security issues. The new AI training policy is another chapter in this ongoing story.

The Hidden Dangers of AI Data Training

Experts in data privacy are concerned about this move. Karolis Kaciulis, a senior systems engineer at Surfshark, has spoken out about the issue. He describes training AI with user data as a serious misuse of that information. In his view, your personal data belongs to you, not to a company or its AI. This is especially true in Europe, where a law known as the GDPR gives people strong rights over their data.

When you share your profile and posts with an AI, several risks emerge.

• Loss of Control: Your data can be stored and analyzed in ways you cannot see or control.
• Targeted Manipulation: The information an AI learns about you could be used to create highly targeted messages designed to influence you.
• Identity Theft: The more an AI knows about your professional life and personal details, the easier it could be for that information to be misused by bad actors to impersonate you.

A key problem is that an AI cannot “unlearn” what it has been taught. Once your data is absorbed into the system, it is nearly impossible to remove it. Kaciulis argues that if we want AI systems to respect our privacy, they need to be built differently from the start. They should be designed with transparency and user rights in mind. He believes the current approach directly contradicts the direction of data protection laws being developed in the European Union.

The Ghost Profile: A Real-Life Example

The way companies handle data can be confusing and sometimes concerning. Consider this personal story. An individual who never signed up for a LinkedIn account discovered that one existed for them anyway. They had a professional email address that was once associated with a video training company called video2brain. That company was bought by Lynda.com, which was then bought by LinkedIn.

Through these company acquisitions, the email address became part of LinkedIn’s system. Years later, while looking into this new AI policy, the person tried to log into LinkedIn using their Microsoft account. They were successful. An account had been created for them without their active consent. The profile was mostly empty, but it contained their email address and a location based on their internet connection. The email was set to be public.

This experience shows how your data can travel from one company to another, and how profiles can be created for you in the background. It serves as a strong reminder to be watchful over your digital footprint. This individual immediately set the ghost profile to private and deactivated it.

How Much Information Does LinkedIn Collect?

The amount of data LinkedIn collects is extensive. An analysis of its App Store page revealed that the company collects 26 out of the 35 different types of data that Apple asks companies to declare. This makes it one of the most data-hungry consumer apps available.

The data used for advertising to other companies includes:

• Usage Data: How you interact with the app.
• Location: Your physical location.
• Contacts: Information from your device’s contact list.
• Identifiers: Unique codes that identify you and your device.
• Contact Information: Your email and phone number.
• Financial Information: Payment details if you use premium services.
• User Content: Your posts and photos.
• History: Your browsing and search history on the platform.

This level of data collection gives the company a very detailed picture of your life. When combined with AI training, it creates a powerful system that knows a lot about you.

Should You Leave LinkedIn?

Seeing all this, you might ask yourself: “Should I just delete my LinkedIn account?” This is a fair question, but the answer is not simple. For many people, LinkedIn is an essential tool for their career. It is where recruiters look for candidates, where professionals build their networks, and where industry news is shared. Leaving the platform could mean missing out on important opportunities.

You have to weigh the benefits against the risks.

If You Stay

You need to be proactive. Take control of your settings. Opt out of the AI training. Go through your profile and remove any information you are not comfortable sharing publicly. Think carefully before you post. Treat every piece of content as something that could be analyzed for years to come.

If You Leave

If the privacy risks feel too great, deleting your account is the only way to be certain your data is no longer being collected. This is a personal decision. It depends on how much you rely on the service for your job and career growth.

Ultimately, this is about your comfort level. The digital world requires us to constantly make choices about our data. Microsoft’s new policy for LinkedIn is a powerful reminder that we must pay attention and take action to protect our personal and professional information. Your career story is yours to tell, and you should be the one to decide how it is used.