Hong Kong regulators gives heads up to LinkedIn users ahead of AI data training

Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog has asked LinkedIn users to review their privacy settings. According to reports, the professional networking giant is set to resume using its personal data to train generative AI models starting from next Monday.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data issued a reminder that LinkedIn has confirmed it would begin using personal data to train its generative AI models starting on November 3. 

“Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Ada Chung Lai-ling reminds LinkedIn users to pay attention to the changes in LinkedIn’s privacy policy and to understand its relevant contents, in particular those relating to the use of users’ personal data for training generative AI models, in order to decide whether to consent to such use,” the statement read.

HK watchdog pressures LinkedIn to tighten data control in AI training

LinkedIn announced plans to begin using member profiles, posts, resumes, and public activity to train its artificial intelligence models back in September 2025.

The professional networking platform and jobs site confirmed that data from members in the United Kingdom, the European Union, the European Economic Area, Switzerland, Canada, and Hong Kong will be included.

Initially, Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog intervened and halted LinkedIn’s use of this data in late 2024, following the company’s revision of its privacy policy and concerns raised about the default opt-in setting for Hong Kong users.

The watchdog said it had continued to engage with LinkedIn from October 2024 to April of this year. Since then, LinkedIn has promised that Hong Kong users will continue to have control over how their data is used for AI training and that all data processing will comply with the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.

To that end, the data LinkedIn is set to use includes detailed information from users’ profiles and public content posted on LinkedIn. Users have received assurances from the company that the data does not include private messages. However, users under 18 will be excluded from AI training.

Additionally, the watchdog stated that those who wished to opt out should go to the “Data privacy” section in their account settings, then select “Data for Generative AI Improvement” to find the toggle switch. They should then turn off the “Use my data for training content creation AI models” option. 

The watchdog has also stated that it will continue to monitor the situation to ensure the personal data privacy of Hong Kong users is protected. This approach aligns with a broader trend among social media platforms. 

As reported by Cryptopolitan, Meta made a similar move last year for Facebook and Instagram, resuming the practice after completing a regulatory review.

AI models run out of training data

LinkedIn plans to share user data with Microsoft and its affiliates for the purpose of AI training. Microsoft has made significant investments in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.

This development follows Goldman Sachs’ data chief’s statement that AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, have exhausted their training data. Neema Raphael, who serves as the banking giant’s chief data officer and head of data engineering, said the issue could stunt the development of artificial intelligence.

OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever said last year that the lack of training data would mean that AI’s rapid development “will unquestionably end”.

The lack of new data could force AI companies to shift away from current training models, focusing instead on more agentic artificial intelligence. AI agents are already being developed and released by most major artificial intelligence firms. They serve as autonomous systems that can make decisions and perform tasks online without human oversight.

Agentic AI systems can launch attacks that adapt in real time, learning from defensive countermeasures and evolving their tactics on the fly. However, the same autonomous capabilities could also revolutionize how we defend against cyber threats. Still, to humans, this is the biggest threat.

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