LinkedIn Fined 310 Million Euros For Privacy Violations

The Irish data regulator imposed a 310 million euro fine on LinkedIn for violating a European privacy law stemming from the company’s use of customer data.

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The Irish Data Protection Commission on Thursday said LinkedIn’s data processing for behavior analysis and targeted advertisement violated three provisions under the General Data Protection Regulation.

Violations include failing to correctly obtain consent before processing user data and failing to inform the data owners how their data was being processed. The affected data included personal information submitted by LinkedIn users directly to the company and data from LinkedIn third-party services.

The company’s use of customer data also failed to meet transparency and fairness requirements under GDPR.

“The lawfulness of processing is a fundamental aspect of data protection law and the processing of personal data without an appropriate legal basis is a clear and serious violation of a data subject’s fundamental right to data protection,” Graham Doyle, DPC deputy commissioner said. The agency ordered LinkedIn to bring its data processing under compliance.

The Irish DPC launched the investigation based on a 2018 complaint to the French data regulator filed by Parisian nonprofit La Quadrature Du Net. The Irish agency handled the complaint since Microsoft-owned LinkedIn’s European headquarters are in Dublin.

“While we believe we have complied with the General Data Protection Regulation, we are working to ensure our ad practices meet this decision by the IDPC’s deadline,” LinkedIn said in a Thursday statement.

It is unclear if LinkedIn will contest the DPC’s latest fine. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

LinkedIn in September suspended its use of social media posts to train its artificial intelligence model.