Introduction
Our registered users (“Members”) share their professional identities, engage with their network, exchange knowledge and professional insights, post and view relevant content, learn and develop skills, and find business and career opportunities. Content and data on some of our Services is viewable to non-members.
Services
This Privacy Policy applies to LinkedIn.com, LinkedIn-branded apps, Slideshare, LinkedIn Learning and other LinkedIn-related sites, apps, communications and services (“Services”), including off-site Services, such as our ad services and the “Apply with LinkedIn” and “Share with LinkedIn” plugins, but excluding services that state that they are offered under a different privacy policy. For California residents, additional disclosures required by California law may be found in our California Privacy Disclosure.
Data Controllers and Contracting Parties
If you are in the “Designated Countries”, LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company (“LinkedIn Ireland”) will be the controller of your personal data provided to, or collected by or for, or processed in connection with our Services.
If you are outside of the Designated Countries, LinkedIn Corporation will be the controller of your personal data provided to, or collected by or for, or processed in connection with, our Services.
As a Visitor or Member of our Services, the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to this Privacy Policy and other documents referenced in this Privacy Policy, as well as updates.
Change
LinkedIn (“we” or “us”) can modify this Privacy Policy, and if we make material changes to it, we will provide notice through our Services, or by other means, to provide you the opportunity to review the changes before they become effective. If you object to any changes, you may close your account.
You acknowledge that your continued use of our Services after we publish or send a notice about our changes to this Privacy Policy means that the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to the updated Privacy Policy, as of its effective date.
1. Data We Collect
1.1 Data You Provide To Us
Registration
To create an account you need to provide data including your name, email address and/or mobile number, and a password. If you register for a premium Service, you will need to provide payment (e.g., credit card) and billing information.
Profile
You have choices about the information on your profile, such as your education, work experience, skills, photo, city or area and endorsements. Some Members may choose to complete a separate ProFinder profile. You don’t have to provide additional information on your profile; however, profile information helps you to get more from our Services, including helping recruiters and business opportunities find you. It’s your choice whether to include sensitive information on your profile and to make that sensitive information public. Please do not post or add personal data to your profile that you would not want to be publicly available.
Posting and Uploading
We collect personal data from you when you provide, post or upload it to our Services, such as when you fill out a form, (e.g., with demographic data or salary), respond to a survey, or submit a resume or fill out a job application on our Services. If you opt to import your address book, we receive your contacts (including contact information your service provider(s) or app automatically added to your address book when you communicated with addresses or numbers not already in your list).
If you sync your contacts or calendars with our Services, we will collect your address book and calendar meeting information to keep growing your network by suggesting connections for you and others, and by providing information about events, e.g. times, places, attendees and contacts.
You don’t have to post or upload personal data; though if you don’t, it may limit your ability to grow and engage with your network over our Services.
1.2 Data From Others
Content and News
You and others may post content that includes information about you (as part of articles, posts, comments, videos) on our Services. Unless you opt-out, we collect public information about you, such as professional-related news and accomplishments (e.g., patents granted, professional recognition, conference speakers, projects, etc.) and make it available as part of our Services (e.g. suggestions for your profile, or notifications to others of mentions in the news).
Contact and Calendar Information
We receive personal data (including contact information) about you when others import or sync their contacts or calendar with our Services, associate their contacts with Member profiles, scan and upload business cards, or send messages using our Services (including invites or connection requests). If you or others opt-in to sync email accounts with our Services, we will also collect “email header” information that we can associate with Member profiles.
Partners
We receive personal data (e.g., your job title and work email address) about you when you use the services of our customers and partners, such as employers or prospective employers and applicant tracking systems providing us job application data.
Related Companies and Other Services
We receive data about you when you use some of the other services provided by us or our affiliates, including Microsoft. For example, you may choose to send us information about your contacts in Microsoft apps and services, such as Outlook, for improved professional networking activities on our Services.
1.3 Service Use
We log usage data when you visit or otherwise use our Services, including our sites, app and platform technology, such as when you view or click on content (e.g., learning video) or ads (on or off our sites and apps), perform a search, install or update one of our mobile apps, share articles or apply for jobs. We use log-ins, cookies, device information and internet protocol (“IP”) addresses to identify you and log your use.
1.4 Cookies and Similar Technologies
As further described in our Cookie Policy, we use cookies and similar technologies (e.g., pixels and ad tags) to collect data (e.g., device IDs) to recognize you and your device(s) on, off and across different services and devices where you have engaged with our Services. We also allow some others to use cookies as described in our Cookie Policy. If you are outside the Designated Countries, we also collect (or rely on others who collect) information about your device where you have not engaged with our Services (e.g., ad ID, IP address, operating system and browser information) so we can provide our Members with relevant ads and better understand their effectiveness. Learn more. You can opt out from our use of data from cookies and similar technologies that track your behavior on the sites of others for ad targeting and other ad-related purposes. For Visitors, the controls are here.
1.5 Your Device and Location
When you visit or leave our Services (including some plugins and our cookies or similar technology on the sites of others), we receive the URL of both the site you came from and the one you go to and the time of your visit. We also get information about your network and device (e.g., IP address, proxy server, operating system, web browser and add-ons, device identifier and features, cookie IDs and/or ISP, or your mobile carrier). If you use our Services from a mobile device, that device will send us data about your location based on your phone settings. We will ask you to opt-in before we use GPS or other tools to identify your precise location.
1.6 Messages
We collect information about you when you send, receive, or engage with messages in connection with our Services. For example, if you get a LinkedIn connection request, we track whether you have acted on it and will send you reminders. We also use automatic scanning technology on messages to support and protect our site. For example, we use this technology to suggest possible responses to messages and to manage or block content that violates our User Agreement or Professional Community Policies from our Services.
1.7 Workplace and School Provided Information
Others buying our Services for your use, such as your employer or your school, provide us with personal data about you and your eligibility to use the Services that they purchase for use by their workers, students or alumni. For example, we will get contact information for “Company Page” administrators and for authorizing users of our premium Services, such as our recruiting, sales or learning products.
1.8 Sites and Services of Others
We receive information about your visits and interaction with services provided by others when you log-in with LinkedIn or visit others’ services that include some of our plugins (such as “Apply with LinkedIn”) or our ads, cookies or similar technologies
1.9 Other
Our Services are dynamic, and we often introduce new features, which may require the collection of new information. If we collect materially different personal data or materially change how we collect, use or share your data, we will notify you and may also modify this Privacy Policy.
2. How We Use Your Data
How we use your personal data will depend on which Services you use, how you use those Services and the choices you make in your settings. We use the data that we have about you to provide and personalize our Services, including with the help of automated systems and inferences we make, so that our Services (including ads) can be more relevant and useful to you and others.
2.1 Services
We use your data to authorize access to our Services and honor your settings.
Stay Connected
Our Services allow you to stay in touch and up to date with colleagues, partners, clients, and other professional contacts. To do so, you can “connect” with the professionals who you choose, and who also wish to “connect” with you. Subject to your and their settings, when you connect with other Members, you will be able to search each others’ connections in order to exchange professional opportunities.
We use data about you (such as your profile, profiles you have viewed or data provided through address book uploads or partner integrations) to help others find your profile, suggest connections for you and others (e.g. Members who share your contacts or job experiences) and enable you to invite others to become a Member and connect with you. You can also opt-in to allow us to use your precise location or proximity to others for certain tasks (e.g. to suggest other nearby Members for you to connect with, calculate the commute to a new job, or notify your connections that you are at a professional event).
It is your choice whether to invite someone to our Services, send a connection request, or allow another Member to become your connection. When you invite someone to connect with you, your invitation will include your network and basic profile information (e.g., name, profile photo, job title, region). We will send invitation reminders to the person you invited. You can choose whether or not to share your own list of connections with your connections.
Visitors have choices about how we use their data.
Stay Informed
Our Services allow you to stay informed about news, events and ideas regarding professional topics you care about, and from professionals you respect. Our Services also allow you to improve your professional skills, or learn new ones. We use the data we have about you (e.g., data you provide, data we collect from your engagement with our Services and inferences we make from the data we have about you), to personalize our Services for you, such as by recommending or ranking relevant content and conversations on our Services. We also use the data we have about you to suggest skills you could add to your profile and skills that you might need to pursue your next opportunity. So, if you let us know that you are interested in a new skill (e.g., by watching a learning video), we will use this information to personalize content in your feed, suggest that you follow certain members on our site, or suggest related learning content to help you towards that new skill. We use your content, activity and other data, including your name and photo, to provide notices to your network and others. For example, subject to your settings, we may notify others that you have updated your profile, posted content, took a social action, used a feature, made new connections or were mentioned in the news.
Career
Our Services allow you to explore careers, evaluate educational opportunities, and seek out, and be found for, career opportunities. Your profile can be found by those looking to hire (for a job or a specific task) or be hired by you. We will use your data to recommend jobs or mentees, show you and others relevant professional contacts (e.g., who work at a company, in an industry, function or location or have certain skills and connections). You can signal that you are interested in changing jobs and share information with recruiters. We will use your data to recommend jobs to you and you to recruiters. We may use automated systems to provide content and recommendations to help make our Services more relevant to our Members, Visitors and customers. Keeping your profile accurate and up-to-date may help you better connect to others and to opportunities through our Services.
Productivity
Our Services allow you to collaborate with colleagues, search for potential clients, customers, partners and others to do business with. Our Services allow you to communicate with other Members and schedule and prepare meetings with them. If your settings allow, we scan messages to provide “bots” or similar tools that facilitate tasks such as scheduling meetings, drafting responses, summarizing messages or recommending next steps. Learn more.
2.2 Premium Services
We sell premium Services that provide our customers and subscribers with customized-search functionality and tools (including messaging and activity alerts) as part of our talent, marketing and sales solutions. Customers can export limited information from your profile, such as name, headline, current company, current title, and general location (e.g., Dublin), such as to manage sales leads or talent, unless you opt-out. We do not provide contact information to customers as part of these premium Services without your consent. Premium Services customers can store information they have about you in our premium Services, such as a resume or contact information or sales history. The data stored about you by these customers is subject to the policies of those customers. Other enterprise Services and features that use your data include TeamLink and Elevate (social promotion of content).
2.3 Communications
We will contact you through email, mobile phone, notices posted on our websites or apps, messages to your LinkedIn inbox, and other ways through our Services, including text messages and push notifications. We will send you messages about the availability of our Services, security, or other service-related issues. We also send messages about how to use our Services, network updates, reminders, job suggestions and promotional messages from us and our partners. You may change your communication preferences at any time. Please be aware that you cannot opt out of receiving service messages from us, including security and legal notices.
We also enable communications between you and others through our Services, including for example invitations, InMail, groups and messages between connections.
2.4 Advertising
We target (and measure the performance of) ads to Members, Visitors and others both on and off our Services directly or through a variety of partners, using the following data, whether separately or combined:
- Data from advertising technologies on and off our Services, pixels, ad tags, cookies, and device identifiers;
- Member-provided information (e.g., profile, contact information, title and industry);
- Data from your use of our Services (e.g., search history, feed, content you read, who you follow or is following you, connections, groups participation, page visits, videos you watch, clicking on an ad, etc.), including as described in Section 1.3;
- Information from advertising partners, vendors and publishers ; and
- Information inferred from data described above (e.g., using job titles from a profile to infer industry, seniority, and compensation bracket; using graduation dates to infer age or using first names or pronoun usage to infer gender; using your feed activity to infer your interests; or using device data to recognize you as a Member).
Ad Choices
We adhere to self-regulatory principles for interest-based advertising and participate in industry opt-outs from such ads. This does not opt you out of receiving advertising; you will continue to get other ads by advertisers not listed with these self regulatory tools. You can also opt-out specifically from our uses of certain categories of data to show you more relevant ads. For Visitors, the setting is here.
Info to Ad Providers
We do not share your personal data with any third-party advertisers or ad networks except for: (i) hashed IDs or device identifiers (to the extent they are personal data in some countries); (ii) with your separate permission (e.g., in a lead generation form) or (iii) data already visible to any users of the Services (e.g., profile). However, if you view or click on an ad on or off our Services, the ad provider will get a signal that someone visited the page that displayed the ad, and they may, through the use of mechanisms such as cookies, determine it is you. Advertising partners can associate personal data collected by the advertiser directly from you with hashed IDs or device identifiers received from us. In such instances, we seek to contractually require such advertising partners to obtain your explicit, opt-in consent before doing so.
2.5 Marketing
In addition to advertising our Services, we use Members’ data and content for invitations and communications promoting membership and network growth, engagement and our Services, such as by showing your connections that you have used a feature on our Services.
2.6 Developing Services and Research
Service Development
We use data, including public feedback, to conduct research and development for our Services in order to provide you and others with a better, more intuitive and personalized experience, drive membership growth and engagement on our Services, and help connect professionals to each other and to economic opportunity.
Other Research
We seek to create economic opportunity for Members of the global workforce and to help them be more productive and successful. We use the personal data available to us to research social, economic and workplace trends, such as jobs availability and skills needed for these jobs and policies that help bridge the gap in various industries and geographic areas. In some cases, we work with trusted third parties to perform this research, under controls that are designed to protect your privacy. We publish or allow others to publish economic insights, presented as aggregated data rather than personal data.
Surveys
Polls and surveys are conducted by us and others through our Services. You are not obligated to respond to polls or surveys, and you have choices about the information you provide. You may opt-out of survey invitations.
2.7 Customer Support
We use data (which can include your communications) to investigate, respond to and resolve complaints and for Service issues (e.g., bugs).
2.8 Insights That Do Not Identify You
We use your data to produce and share insights that do not identify you. For example, we may use your data to generate statistics about our members, their profession or industry, to calculate ad impressions served or clicked on, or to publish visitor demographics for a Service or create demographic workforce insights.
