LinkedIn locks your GDPR rights behind a paywall
LinkedIn tracks who views user profiles but restricts access to that data behind a paid Premium subscription. Privacy researchers argue this violates Article 15 of GDPR, which gives people the right to access personal data held about them, regardless of whether a company also sells it as a product feature.
Why this matters: GDPR gives you the right to see your own data. It does not have a carve-out for data a company finds profitable to withhold. LinkedIn is essentially charging people to exercise a legal right, then citing privacy concerns as cover when asked to comply. That is a convenient argument from a company that had no privacy concerns when it collected the data in the first place. If regulators let this stand, any platform could monetize access rights by bundling them into subscriptions. That would gut one of the few concrete tools individuals have under European privacy law.
Who should care: Lawyers · Privacy officers · AI governance · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
This summary is AI-assisted and may contain errors. It is an original briefing to help you gauge significance quickly — not a reproduction of the source. Always read the linked original before relying on it. See our methodology.