LinkedIn: Community & Network

"If you sync your calendars with our Services, we will collect your calendar meeting information to keep growing your network by suggesting connections for you and others. We receive personal data (including contact information) about you when others import or sync their calendar with our Services, associate their contacts with Member profiles, scan and upload business cards, or send messages using our Services."

LinkedIn collects calendar data, address book contacts (even from other users who upload them), device identifiers, browser add-ons, and cookie IDs—going well beyond what's needed for a professional networking platform.

"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. 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)."

LinkedIn collects location data via mobile devices, IP addresses, and proximity-based features, with GPS requiring opt-in but IP-based geolocation collected by default.

"LinkedIn 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."

LinkedIn can change its privacy policy at any time, and your only recourse is to close your account—continued use is treated as acceptance of new terms.

"We will share your personal data with our Affiliates to provide and develop our Services. Subject to our European Regional Privacy Notice, we may also share with our Affiliates, including Microsoft, your (1) publicly-shared content (such as your public LinkedIn posts) to provide or develop their services and (2) personal data to improve, provide or develop their advertising services."

LinkedIn shares personal data broadly with Microsoft and its affiliates for advertising and service development, as well as with service providers, advertising partners, and enterprise customers.

"We generally retain your personal data as long as you keep your account open or as needed to provide you Services. Even if you only use our Services when looking for a new job every few years, we will retain your information and keep your profile open, unless you close your account. In some cases we choose to retain certain information (e.g., insights about Services use) in a depersonalized or aggregated form."

LinkedIn retains all personal data indefinitely as long as the account exists, even with minimal usage, and retains depersonalized data permanently.

"We also collect (or rely on others, including Microsoft, 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. 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 or our ads, cookies or similar technologies."

LinkedIn tracks users across its own services, Microsoft properties, and third-party websites via cookies, pixels, ad tags, and device identifiers—even on sites where users haven't directly engaged with LinkedIn.

"We retain your personal data even after you have closed your account if reasonably necessary to comply with our legal obligations (including law enforcement requests), meet regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, maintain security, prevent fraud and abuse, enforce our User Agreement, or fulfill your request to 'unsubscribe' from further messages from us. Information you have shared with others (e.g., through InMail, updates or group posts) will remain visible after you close your account."

LinkedIn retains personal data after account closure under broad justifications, and content shared with others remains visible indefinitely even after deletion. Profile data may also persist in third-party caches.