How LinkedIn uses your personal demographic data
Last updated: 7 months agoOur vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce, and we are working hard to ensure that all members have equal access to these opportunities. One way to make sure people have equal access is to understand the gender, race, ethnicity, and other important demographic information of our members and then to measure how they are being afforded opportunities on our platform.
Being counted and represented is important to fostering economic opportunity for all, and we want to make sure we are learning and listening to get it right.
If you choose to provide your personal demographic information, it may be used:
- For research and development: To review our products and conduct other research with the goal of removing unfair bias from our products and testing that our use of AI does not introduce unfair bias. We may, on occasion, reach out to members to invite them to participate in user research, because they are members of a particular demographic group. You canopt-out of research invites.
- For aggregate insights for our members and customers: We may combine your data with other members’ information to provide aggregate insights such as salary ranges, industry statistics, and career trends for purposes such as assessing and improving pay equality. We may also provide aggregate insights to help employers and hiring managers in their efforts to identify more diverse candidates. For example, LinkedIn may provide aggregate insights to help companies understand the diversity of candidates engaging with job posts or appearing in candidate searches. Your specific demographic information such as your gender or race will not be disclosed to companies in any of these features.
- For aggregate insights to deliver data on global workforce trends, to measure and improve equality: We will provide insights in our monthly LinkedIn Workforce Report Labor market report, and share insights on what actions members can take for greater equality of opportunity.
- For personalized content: LinkedIn uses age and gender categories (male or female only) that we may infer or that you may provide us to personalize content and recommendations. This includes showing you more relevant advertising, subject to your settings. We don’t allow ad targeting based on race/ethnicity, disability status, or other sensitive characteristics. Learn more about how LinkedIn may infer your age and gender based on information in your profile.
Your personal demographic information won’t be shown on your profile or disclosed to others on LinkedIn. LinkedIn uses demographic data that you provide via the Self-ID form to correct any binary gender inferences we may have made. When you share demographic information on Self-ID through the free text boxes, LinkedIn may put the information you share into broader categories. For example, if you enter “Straight,” we may put you into the category “Heterosexual”, “Cis Woman” into the “Female” category, and “Korean” into the “East Asian” category. If you would like to learn how your free text entry may be categorized, pleasecontact us.