15 ms·

I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

• globalnode 8mo ago
  What a sad story. I feel sorry for this person. But it was very naive to put that data up in the first place. I recently tried to open a FB acct so I could connect with local community but within 2 days I was accused of being a bot and asked to start a video interview with a verification bot. That didn't happen, local community can do without me ;)
  • onetokeoverthe 8mo ago
    insane. interview with a bot. dropped linkedin after ten years due to an id request. hurts but if EVERYONE SAID NO it would be better tomorrow.
• 7777777phil 8mo ago
  > If you’ve already verified — like me — here’s what I’d recommend Did you actually follow through with 1-4 and if so what was the outcome? how long did it take?
• SanjayMehta 8mo ago
  LinkedIn locked me out of my account, and wants me to verify via this same Persona company. I didn't read the terms but there's no way I'm giving Microsoft or its minions my govt id. What this user missed is the affidavit option: you can get a piece of paper attested by a local authority and upload that instead, if you really really need a LinkedIn verified account. Microsoft can go jump.
  • LadyCailin 8mo ago
    The trouble is, now it WILL be harder for you to find a job later. These policies are “your choice” like a diabetic taking insulin “chooses” to take insulin. If we actually treat things like this as a choice, the word loses all meaning.
    • SanjayMehta 8mo ago
      My job hunting days are long over but you're right, LinkedIn et al are indulging in a form of blackmail with chicanery like this. Having said that, I've noticed most resumes I receive have GitHub links over LinkedIn. We've advertised on LinkedIn with mixed results, employee referrals have always been more effective.
  • Chris_Newton 8mo ago
    I too found that my LinkedIn account had suddenly become “temporarily” disabled a little while ago, for reasons unspecified. I too was invited to share my government ID with some verification system to get back in again. I too declined on privacy grounds.
  • dizhn 8mo ago
    My friends were pestering me about having to have an X account to know what's going on and that it'll be fine if I don't engage with any conversation or even follow anyone. I created one, and started the usual "don't show me this" thing for the crap that comes up in the field by default. I think my account was active for 10 minutes when it got blocked due to "suspicious activity" and locked. All I have to do now to activate is give them more of my information including my phone number. I've had this same exact thing happen with Facebook and Instgram too. Facebook was probably no less than 5 years ago so this is not new. You can usually confirm your identity (which they do not know), using your phone number (which they do not have). Read that again. :) They ALL do this. The kicker is you will not find any sympathy because they start with jurisdictions (3rd world) where they can get away with it and people will lecture you about how you must have done something because Facebook never asked for their phone number or blocked them. I had Airbnb ask for my passport 10 years ago ffs and I did give it and they still didn't want to give me the place until the proprietor intervened and sorted it out. I had the same exact helpful comments about it online that I described above. "You must have done something", "You're full of shit, they don't ask for passport at all". This attitude by my "fellow men" is what bothers me most about this whole thing. And now it's global, the same people will probably go "what do you have to hide", "you show your passport at the border don't you?".
    • rrr_oh_man 8mo ago
      > "what do you have to hide" I usually say "great, can I install a camera in your bathroom? No? Do you have anything to hide? This is what it feels like to me."
      • dizhn 8mo ago
        Right. Have you actually had anyone change their mind about it though? I am going to guess no. You probably heard a million different versions of how "that is different".
  • wolvoleo 8mo ago
    The problem is your account is still there and you can't even delete it from linkedin until you verify :(
• PacificSpecific 8mo ago
  I wonder what mongo and snowflake are doing with that data. The table is a little vague. I was under the impression they just make database products. Do they have a side hustle involving collecting this type of data?
  • SahAssar 8mo ago
    Subprocessor usually just means that you use their products in a way that your personal data passes through them. For example, let's say you are using cloudflare and aws to host a site, then your subprocessors would be cloudflare and aws. It can be some more nefarious use, but it can also just be that they (persona in this case) use their services to process/store your data.
    • PacificSpecific 8mo ago
      Ah I see that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
• BrandoElFollito 8mo ago
  Ha. I was reading this and thought "euhhhh, I did not give all of that to verify my account". So I went to LinkedIn to check if I have the shield. I then saw - that I just have "work email verified" and that there is a Persona thing I was not even aware of - a post by Brian Krebs at the top of my feed, exactly on that topic: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bkrebs_if-you-are-thinking-about-verifying-your-activity-7430615492442091520-2W3K https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bkrebs_if-you-are-thinking-ab...
  • nottorp 8mo ago
    Yep, I clicked verify experimentally and all they wanted was my work email and a code they sent to it. Of course, that works probably because my work has a linkedin account so they know what the official domain is for it. I guess they'll spam that email but it's not like I care. I already receive spam offering me subcontracting services so I guess it's published somewhere.
  • 8cvor6j844qw_d6 8mo ago
    > that I just have "work email verified" and that there is a Persona thing I was not even aware of Good to know that work email verification doesn't involve Persona. That seems like a reasonable middle ground. Work email is a much lighter ask than handing over government ID and biometrics. Curious, does your verification status persist after you remove the work email (e.g., if you leave that employer)?
    • BrandoElFollito 8mo ago
      > Curious, does your verification status persist after you remove the work email (e.g., if you leave that employer)? I guess so. To me this is a mini-identity check so LinkedIn probably assumes that if it was fine so far, it will stay that way later.
• xhcuvuvyc 8mo ago
  You still have a linkedin? Isn't that just all ai slop?
  • kg 8mo ago
    It's still used for job hunting and recruiting unfortunately. I got a real message from a real recruiter for a 5k+ employee software company on it just last week. My friends and colleagues dealing with layoffs have had to update their profiles. :(
  • probably_wrong 8mo ago
    If you know a better place to look for open positions in Europe, I'm listening.
    • uyzstvqs 8mo ago
      Country-specific local job boards are best. Big tech companies (LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor) are terrible for this purpose. Always apply directly on a potential employers' website, best through email if they accept that. Even printing your application and sending it by mail is a far better option than applying through LinkedIn or Indeed.
  • andreashaerter 8mo ago
    > You still have a linkedin? Sadly, LinkedIn has replaced email for initial contact after fairs or in-person client meetings. New real-world contacts look you up on LinkedIn and then use it to ask for things like your email address or mobile number. Because of this, I'm even verified :-(. Even though I use LinkedIn basically the same way Internet Explorer was used in 2009 (purely as a Firefox or Chrome downloader but not for browsing). LinkedIn is my initial contact details exchange, but not the platform to communicate. > Isn't that just all ai slop? It is. I basically get zero useful input. Just biased, shallow rubbish. If there is valuable content it is usually cross-posted from authors who also run blogs I already follow. Edit: Spelling, grammar, style
  • subscribed 8mo ago
    You don't have to browse it. Just make a miniscule change in your profile from time to time, save it, and wait for recruiters to contact you. Once it's a human contact Ai slop doesn't impact you.
• throwaway77385 8mo ago
  How does this work for the myriad banks I've had to prove my identity to in the same way? I'll be attempting steps 1-4 and see what Persona comes back with.
  • throwaway77385 8mo ago
    To report back on this, I contacted the various email addresses given in OP's article. For people with GDPR rights, this link helps make a DSAR (though interestingly the US and many other countries are also available from the country dropdown, maybe they follow these rules everywhere): https://withpersona.com/dsar https://withpersona.com/dsar This of course brings up the problem of having to verify the ID of the person who's requesting their ID to be deleted from their DB. So I am probably going to stop here. I also received a separate email stating that my data was already scheduled for deletion if I used Persona through LinkedIn.
• blaze33 8mo ago
  > My NFC chip data — the digital info stored on the chip inside my passport Do we know how they get that? Because my fingerprints are also in there, so...
  • lkramer 8mo ago
    They will have an app that asks to scan you passport with your phone's NFC reader. It's pretty common for Identity Verification.
    • duskdozer 8mo ago
      Wow, that's even worse than I imagined and I was already imagining bad things
      • subscribed 8mo ago
        Imagine all the things their phone app can exfiltrate. All vaguely categorised in privacy policy of course.
  • Msurrow 8mo ago
    Yeah was thinking the same thing. I wonder if the author didnt known that passpory chip == fingerprint. And FP is a much worse modality to have registered because, as opposed to Face image, fingerprint is not affected by age. So that will match you 99.999999% for ever. Faces change.
    • alansaber 8mo ago
      I naievely assumed fingerprints were trivial to change but on further reading they are a remarkable biomarker
  • fuzzy2 8mo ago
    Highly unlikely they did. Just because it’s in the privacy notice doesn’t mean they actually gather or store this information. And indeed, fingerprints are only accessible using privileged access. Not even you, the passport holder, has access.
• varispeed 8mo ago
  Just wait when next time they ask for your member length and girth or flaps size.
  • kotaKat 8mo ago
    That's the Worldcoin Orb 2.0. Stick it in to identify yourself to make a payment.
    • subscribed 8mo ago
      To deposit a payment. ;)
• nalekberov 8mo ago
  You can verify yourself using company email address - maybe I am being naive to think that it’s much safer, but it’s way better than handing over your ID data. I never understand why people supply too much info about themselves for small gains. People at LinkedIn wants you to believe that your career is safe if you play by their games, but ironically they are one of the main reasons why companies nowadays are comfortable with hiring and firing fast.
  • andreashaerter 8mo ago
    > You can verify yourself using company email address LinkedIn does not support smaller companies; it appears to rely on some kind of whitelist or known-enterprise system. This option is simply not available for at least 90% of users.
    • nalekberov 8mo ago
      > LinkedIn does not support smaller companies. Pity, but even then is it worth to hand over your very personal data to multiple companies for the sake of blue tick? Not judging, genuine question.
• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• ColinWright 8mo ago
  I used to have a LinkedIn account, a long time ago. To register I created an email address that was unique to LinkedIn, and pretty much unguessable ... certainly not amenable to a dictionary attack. I ended up deciding that I was getting no value from the account, and I heard unpleasant things about the company, so I deleted the account. Within hours I started to get spam to that unique email address. It would be interesting to run a semi-controlled experiment to test whether this was a fluke, or if they leaked, sold, or otherwise lost control of my data. But absolutely I will not trust them with anything I want to keep private. I do not trust LinkedIn to keep my data secure ... I believe they sold it.
  • eastbound 8mo ago
    Remember when LinkedIn was condemned because they copied Gmail’s login page saying “Log in with Google”, then you entered your password, then they retrieved all your contacts, even the bank, the mailing lists, your ex, and spammed the hell out of them, saying things in your name in the style of “You haven’t joined in 5 days, I want you to subscribe” ?
    • philjackson 8mo ago
      I don't know how they're still in business after that. They also had a massive data breach at one point.
      • tokioyoyo 8mo ago
        Because super-majority doesn't really care if the product does what it's intended to in the end.
    • StrauXX 8mo ago
      Do you have a reference with more information on that?
      • genghisjahn 8mo ago
        They used a legit google oauth but with broad rights. They did pull the contact and repeatedly spam them as personal emails. There were lawsuits.
• elAhmo 8mo ago
  From the article: > Let that sink in. You scanned your European passport for a European professional network, and your data went exclusively to North American companies. Not a single EU-based subprocessor in the chain. Not sure LinkedIn is a European professional network.
  • guenthert 8mo ago
    Yeah, he might have wanted to use Xing. Of course, he'd be pretty lonely there.
    • vdfs 8mo ago
      Viadeo is slightly more popular
  • black_puppydog 8mo ago
    I think the author was talking about their own professional network being based in Europe, as opposed by LinkedIn, the platform that they're using to contact said network.
  • llm_nerd 8mo ago
    Their use of LinkedIn is for local and semi-local professional networks. It's like if you use Nextdoor for your street. And of course those Europeans use LinkedIn for the network effect (even though LinkedIn is just a pathetic sad dead mall now, so most are doing so for an illusion), because other prior waves of Europeans also used LinkedIn, and so on. Domestic or regional alternatives falter because everyone demands they be on the "one" site. The centralization of tech, largely to the US for a variety of reasons, has been an enormous, colossal mistake. It's at this point I have to laud what China did. They simply banned foreign options in many spaces and healthy domestic options sprouted up overnight. Many countries need to start doing this, especially given that US tech is effectively an arm of a very hostile government that is waging intense diplomatic and trade warfare worldwide, especially against allies.
    • jll29 8mo ago
• dvfjsdhgfv 8mo ago
  Since some job offers require a linked in link, I maintain an empty page explaining why maintaining a LI account is a privacy and security hole. It turns out it works.
  • prox 8mo ago
    Did you need to verify your account first?
    • dvfjsdhgfv 8mo ago
      No, and it's difficult for me to understand why anyone would ever want that.
• _pdp_ 8mo ago
  On EU data sovereignty: The OP is right. For that reason we started migrating all of our cloud-based services out of USA into EU data centers with EU companies behind them. We are basically 80% there. The last 20% remaining are not the difficult ones - they are just not really that important to care that much at this point but the long terms intention is a 100% disconnect. On IDV security: When you send your document to an IDV company (be that in USA or elsewhere) they do not have the automatic right to train on your data without explicit consent. They have been a few pretty big class action lawsuits in the past around this but I also believe that the legal frameworks are simply not strong enough to deter abuse or negligence. That being said, everyone reading this must realise that with large datasets it is practically very likely to miss-label data and it is hard to prove that this is not happening at scale. At the end of the day it will be a query running against a database and with huge volumes it might catch more than it should. Once the data is selected for training and trained on, it is impossible to undo the damage. You can delete the training artefact after the fact of course but the weights of the models are already re-balanced with the said data unless you train from scratch which nobody does. I think everyone should assume that their data, be that source code, biometrics, or whatever, is already used for training without consent and we don't have the legal frameworks to protect you against such actions - in fact we have the opposite. The only control you have is not to participate.
• tamimio 8mo ago
  This process will be done in a way that you won’t even have to do it in 3min, it will be part of you phone wallet, and whenever you sign up you will be required to verify it there, essentially, all big tech will be having a copy of your biometric, and consequently, all three letter agencies too. Welcome to the tyranny of big tech!
• trilogic 8mo ago
  Great article, thank you. Hiding all this very important info (which literally affects the users life) behind an insignificant boring click! Even the most paranoid user will give up in certain use cases, (like with covid 19 which even though didn´t agree, you needed to travel, work making it compulsory). Every company that uses deciving techniques like this should be banned in Europe.
• luxpir 8mo ago
  I really appreciate this write-up. Was forced to verify to get access to a new account. Like, an interstitial page that forced verification before even basic access. Brief context for that: was being granted a salesnav licence, but to my work address with no account attached to it. Plus I had an existing salesnav trial underway on main account and didn't want to give access to that work. So I reluctantly verified with my passport (!) and got access. Then looked at all the privacy settings to try to access what I'd given, but the full export was only sign up date and one other row in a csv. I switched off all the dark pattern ad settings that were default on, then tried to recall the name of the company. Lack of time meant I haven't been able to follow up. I was deeply uncomfortable with the whole process. So now I've requested my info and deletion via the details in the post, from the work address. One other concern is if my verified is ever forced to be my main, I'll be screwed for contacts and years of connections. So I'll try to shut it down soon when I'm sure we're done at work. But tbh I don't think the issues will end there either. Why do these services have to suck so much. Why does money confer such power instead of goodwill, integrity and trust/trustless systems. Things have to change. Or, just stay off the grid. But that shouldn't have to be the choice. Where are the decentralised services. I'm increasingly serious about this.
  • SomeUserName432 8mo ago
    > Was forced to verify to get access to a new account. Like, an interstitial page that forced verification before even basic access. I'm forced to verify to access my existing account. I cannot delete it, nor opt out of 'being used for AI content' without first handing them over even more information I'm sure will be used for completely benign purposes.
    • luxpir 8mo ago
      That's concerning. Kids in Oz were getting around social media age restrictions by holding up celeb photos. I doubt that'll work in this case, but I'd be tempted to start thinking of ways to circumvent. At the risk of losing the account, it's a very bad situation they are forcing people into.
    • kioshix 8mo ago
• srameshc 8mo ago
  This is the kind of activism in privacy appreciate that we need. I knew I did not want to verify but I did verify on Linkedin recently. The fact that the author also gave an action list if you are concerned about your privacy is just commendable.
• Kaijo 8mo ago
  I hate LinkedIn but need it for a few things, mostly accessing certain clients and projects as a freelancer. Last October my ISP (Vodafone UK) assigned me a datacenter-classified IPv6 address with 80+ abuse reports on reputation databases, for bots, DDoS, crawlers. Before I realized this I started getting locked out, suspended, restricted from just about every web service I use, having to solve captchas for simple Google searches, etc. I resolved everything except LinkedIn. They required Persona verification to restore access, but I'd already recently verified with Persona, so clicking the re-verification links just returned a Catch-22 "you've already verified with us." LinkedIn support is unreachable unless you're signed into an account. I tried direct emails, webforms, DMs to LinkedIn Help on Twitter, all completely ignored. Eventually some cooldown timer must have expired, because Persona finally let me re-verify last week. Upon regaining access, I was encouraged me to verify with Persona AGAIN, this time for the verified badge. I now have a taste of what "digital underclass" means, and look forward to the day when no part of my income depends on horrible platforms that make me desperate for the opportunity to give away my personal data!
  • rrr_oh_man 8mo ago
    > look forward to the day when no part of my income depends on horrible platforms that make me desperate for the opportunity to give away my personal data We are moving into the opposite direction. Drink a verification can.
  • prox 8mo ago
    I also feel that digital companies get away with “no human representatives”. I should always have access to a human. It should be law. It will screw over a lot of companies and I am all for it since they don’t know what service looks like if it looked them in the eyes.
    • casenmgreen 8mo ago
      Having this problem with Amazon right now, trying to get a GDPR deletion done.
      • 8mo ago
• csmpltn 8mo ago
  A good reminder of how things actually work, but the article could use some more balancing… > Let that sink in. You scanned your European passport for a European professional network, and your data went exclusively to North American companies. Not a single EU-based subprocessor in the chain. LinkedIn is an American product. The EU has had 20 years to create an equally successful and popular product, which it failed to do. American companies don’t owe your European nationalist ambitions a dime. Use their products at your own discretion. Of course an American company is subject to American law. And of course an American company will prioritise other local, similar jurisdiction companies. And often times there’s no European option that competes on quality, price, etc to begin with. In other words I don’t see why any of this is somehow uniquely wrong to the OP. > Here’s what the CLOUD Act does in plain language: it allows US law enforcement to force any US-based company to hand over data, even if that data is stored on a server outside the United States. European law enforcement agencies have the same powers, which they easily exercise.
  • 47282847 8mo ago
    > European law enforcement agencies have the same powers. No they don’t, not in the way that is implied here. A German court can subpoena German companies. Even for 100% subsidiaries in other European or non-European countries, one needs to request legal assistance. Which then is evaluated based on local jurisdiction of the subsidiary, not the parent. Microsoft Germany as operator is subject to US law and access. See Wikipedia “American exceptionalism” for further examples.
  • kleiba 8mo ago
    One detail you might have overlooked: even if you're an American company - if you offer your services in Europe (through the web or otherwise), you're subject to European laws and regulations, including the GDPR.
    • rrr_oh_man 8mo ago
      "Sue me" is what a purely cis-Atlantean company might say.
• deaux 8mo ago
  The content is of course 100% true and needs to be repeated over and over, every single day. The straight-from-LLM writing style is incredibly grating and does a massive disservice to its importance. It really does not take that long to rewrite it a bit. I hope at least he wrote it on his local Llama instance, else it's truly peak irony. > Here’s the thing about the DPF: it’s the replacement for Privacy Shield, which the European Court of Justice killed in 2020. The reason? US surveillance laws made it impossible to guarantee European data was safe. > The DPF exists because the US signed an Executive Order (14086) promising to behave better. But an Executive Order is not a law. It’s a presidential decision. It can be changed or revoked by any future president with a pen stroke. This understates the reality: the DPF is already dead. Double dead, two separate headshots. Its validity is based on the existence of a US oversight board and redress mechanism that is required to remain free of executive influence. 1. This board is required to have at least 3 members. It has had 1 member since Trump fired three Democrat members in Jan 2025 (besides a 2-week reinstatement period). 2. Trump's EO 14215 of Feb 2025 has brought (among other agencies) the FTC - which enforces compliance with the DPF - under presidential supervision. This is still in effect. Of course, everyone that matters knows this, but it doesn't matter, as it was all a bunch of pretend from day 1. Rules for thee but not for me, as always. But what else can we expect in a world where the biggest economy is ruled by a serial rapist.
  • alansaber 8mo ago
    Even the title is AI slop. Surprised these slop posts do so well on HN of all platforms but I guess they're just high volume. AI-ese is becoming its own dominant language group at this point
  • macintux 8mo ago
    [flagged]
• jarek-foksa 8mo ago
  LinkedIn support will also blatantly lie to you when you ask them whether Persona is GDPR compliant and needed to activate your account. Last year I was trying to setup a business LinkedIn page for SEO purposes, which meant I also had to create a personal account. After being told several times that I absolutely need to scan my ID card with that dodgy app I simply replied that I can't do it due to security concerns. After several weeks they unlocked my account anyway, but I suspect this would not happen if algorithms determined that I actually needed that account to find a job and pay my bills.
• weinzierl 8mo ago
  The strange thing about LinkedIn organization verification is that it never seems to be revoked. I have many contacts with verifications from companies they no longer work for - sometimes for a very long time. On the other hand I see many people posting in official capacity for an organization without verification. When they actively represent their current company but with a random verification from a previous one it gets pretty absurd. In its current form LinkedIn verification is pretty worthless as a trust signal.
• jihadjihad 8mo ago
  > The legal basis? Not consent. > The reason? US surveillance laws […] This slop in every blog post? Fucking tiresome.
• xenator 8mo ago
  More interesting that LinkedIn use fingerprinting everywhere and connect your personal data to every device you are using and connect to other services connected to their network.
  • alansaber 8mo ago
    ... i'm pretty sure every website does this lol. Aggressive fingerprinting is so easy to implement and so high ROI from a security/marketing perspective.
    • xenator 8mo ago
      Unfortunately true, but this time shady KYC is involved
• cl0zedmind 8mo ago
  [dead]
• ozim 8mo ago
  I verified my account and I handed over the same info as I handed over when I was getting MSFT Azure cert exam. So it was nothing special for me.
  • port11 8mo ago
    “I handed over a lot of personal information to my bank, so every website wanting the same level of access is nothing special to me.”
    • ozim 8mo ago
      No point is, it is the same company handling data with exactly the same process. They do it for all MSFT related stuff I guess.
      • port11 8mo ago
        Sure, but a subsidiary has their own Terms, Privacy Policy, list of sub-processors, etc.
• bromuk 8mo ago
  As a European citizen I hope it becomes law to have this data processed in the EU rather than the US.
  • Wilder7977 8mo ago
    My wife works for a competitor of the company mentioned. They are in EU. Still run everything on AWS. The data collected is usually even more than what stated, full video recording of the session with audio etc. AWS EU region is not doing much, and I suspect most companies run on US providers. EU needs independent platform for this to matter.
  • al_borland 8mo ago
    It would be even better if the law enforced that this kind of data could only be used for the stated business need (the basic identity verification), and not be stored or used/shared with anyone else. If anyone is caught violating a law like this, throw the entire c-suite in prison for 10 years. I’m so tired of all these covert ops run by these businesses. They aren’t going to stop until there is a heavy price to pay.
  • uyzstvqs 8mo ago
    Why? I don't want companies and governments to datamine and abuse my data at all. Be it in the US or EU, it's going to be no-way either-way.
• zeroq 8mo ago
  > And look at who’s doing “Data Extraction and Analysis” — Anthropic, OpenAI, and Groqcloud. Three AI companies are processing your passport and selfie data. That's quite cool, it means that soon models will be able to create a fake ID photos with real data. I'm so excited about it! /s
• ricardo81 8mo ago
  So basically 'Their “global network of data partners”' means once you submit that information, it's a free for all. There's so many angles of grind with this kind of thing that big tech has gradually normalised.
• thepancake 8mo ago
  Here's where you went wrong: you're on LinkedIn. Since it's your first time, this one is free, I'll be collecting micropayments for future advice, rest assured.
• unglaublich 8mo ago
  Through extensive data harvesting, and exchanging and partnering across thousands of such data miners, I suspect that by now, the graph of identities and fingerpinted devices must be practically complete. That means that all your actions on the internet can be tracked back, via device fingerprinting and cookie networks, to your physical identity. Great milestone for the surveillance states.
• aanet 8mo ago
  Thanks for writing this up. I didn't realize the privacy rot went so deep. Aside from their AI-slopped newsfeed (F@#$!!!) which should have died long ago, this is atrocious. "Enshittification" was created just for this. Sorry, I got sidetracked. Isn't there anyone from LinkedIn here??
• huqedato 8mo ago
  Passport photo... OMG. You can't image what they can do with that. That's precisely why I closed my linkedin years ago.
• Joyfield 8mo ago
  How did they get your MAC address?
  • fuzzy2 8mo ago
    They probably did not. Privacy notices are usually written by non-technical people. They include a lot more than what is actually stored. I’d also be very surprised if they actually interacted with the digital passport (NFC) as part of the process. I was once part of the process of creating one. After two rounds, business decided too much money is wasted here and all the nonsense will stay. Better to have too much listed than too little.
• stevehawk 8mo ago
  Because it's Persona you can also count on every ICE body cam that is having facial recognition performed by Palantir has access to this data.
• eel 8mo ago
  I'm glad the absurdity of verification is getting attention. I was "forced" to verify by Linkedin to unlock my account. It was last year, and I had left my previous job, but I had not yet lined up a new job. So one of the only times in my career I might actually get value from Linkedin, they locked me out, removed my profile, and told me if I wanted back in, I'd have to verify. I felt helpless and disgusted. I gave in and verified. Persona was the vendor then too. Their web app required me to look straight forward into my camera, then turn my head to the left and right. To me it felt like a blatant data collection scheme rather than something that is providing security. I couldn't find anyone talking about this online at the time. I ended up finding a job through my Linkedin network that I don't think I could have found any other way. I don't know if it was worth getting "verified". --- Related: something else that I find weird. After the Linkedin verification incident, my family went to Europe. When we returned to the US, the immigration agent had my wife and I look into a web cam, then he greeted my wife and I by name without handling our passports. He had to ask for the passport of our 7 month old son. They clearly have some kind of photo recognition software. Where did they get the data for that? I am not enrolled in Global Entry nor TSA PreCheck. I doubt my passport photo alone is enough data for photo recognition.
  • kccqzy 8mo ago
    The thing about looking straight into the camera and turning your head seems to originate from Chinese apps, including some payment apps, bank apps, and government apps. It’s especially disgusting since it imitates the animation used by Apple Face ID, but of course it’s not at all implemented like Face ID.
  • egorfine 8mo ago
    > I'm glad the absurdity of verification is getting attention It's not. The developers' bubble we're in on the HN is invisibly tiny compared to the real life. And normies are not only perfectly happy uploading all their PII to Persona - they won't even understand what's wrong with that.
    • eel 8mo ago
      It's a start. I agree HN is a bubble and doesn't reflect real life as a whole. But I do think HN has a significant bearing on US tech. I've been reading HN for nearly 19 years and in that time almost every new major tech, unicorn, or big culture shift is discussed here before it is mainstream. There has also been a backlash against verification in other communities like Reddit (also a bubble), mainly stemming from Discord's recent announcement. The discourse is good, and while I wish every user and potential user understood all the pros, cons, and ramifications, I'm also happy we are finally talking about it in our bubbles.
• aleksandrm 8mo ago
  LinkedIn is no longer a "professional network". I'm actually considering DELETING my account.
  • ivanjermakov 8mo ago
    What are the alternatives? Reaching out to recruiters directly?
    • stevehawk 8mo ago
      being unemployed forever
      • 18061235 8mo ago
        [dead]
  • 8organicbits 8mo ago
    What's holding you back? As a blogging platform it seems like a mess of fake posturing. Recruiters use it, but that mostly means you get lots of spam. You can find a job without LinkedIn. I deleted my account about a decade ago and feel increasingly justified every time I read about the current state of affairs. After deleting I got a job from HN "who's hiring", joined a friend's company, and now freelance.
• WhereIsTheTruth 8mo ago
  LinkedIn is the ultimate intelligence test: if you register, you have lost
• talkingtab 8mo ago
  Somehow the fundamentals of places like linkedin, gmail, google, facebook, etc have eluded people. 1. they are selling you as a target. 2. some people, governments, groups, whatever are willing to pay a lot of money to obtain information about you. 3. why would someone pay good money to target you unless they were going to profit from doing so. are they stupid? no. 4. where does that profit come from? If some one is willing to pay $100 to target you, how are they going to recoup that money? 5. From you. There is simply no other way this can have worked for this long without this being true. It is a long causal change, so it is fair to ask whether there is any empirical evidence. If this is true we would expect to see ...? Well how about prices going up? Well how about in general people are less able to afford housing, food, cars, etc. I'm speculating here, but perhaps it is predictability. There is a common time warp fantasy about being able to go back and guess the future. You go back and bet on a sports game. If I can predict what you are going to do then I can place much more profitable bets. Do the corporations that participate in this scheme provide mutual economic benefit? Do they contribute to the common wealth or are they parasitical? No one likes to think they have parasites. But we all do these days.
  • locknitpicker 8mo ago
    > Somehow the fundamentals of places like linkedin, gmail, google, facebook, etc have eluded people. LinkedIn is slightly different, as it's fundamentally framed as a job board and recruiting platform. The paying customers are recruiters, and the product is access to the prospective candidates. Hence, LinkedIn offering for free services such as employee verification, work history verificarion, employee vouching, etc.
  • mark_l_watson 8mo ago
    Beautifully written, I saved your post to send the next friend or relative who asks me why I am so hard-over on privacy. I enjoyed working at Google hears ago as a contractor, and they are my ‘favorite’ tech company - the only mega-tech company who’s services I regularly use, but I am constantly mindful of their business model as I use YouTube, GCP, and their various dev APIs.
    • 8mo ago
• qmr 8mo ago
  Well don't do that then.
• ozgung 8mo ago
  I think at this point we should all accept the fact that Information Tech = Spy Tech = Surveillance Tech. This is not about Linkedin or bad implementation by some 3rd party company. This is on purpose. Bad news is that countries started to make id verification mandatory for social media usage. That is also coordinated and for surveillance purposes. Actually Steve Blank has a great talk on the roots of Silicon Valley. SV basically built upon military tech meeting private equity. That's why it's wildly different than say Berlin startup scene, and their products are global and free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
• 8cvor6j844qw_d6 8mo ago
  Seeing some of my colleagues verify through Persona on LinkedIn, and I can't quite figure out what they're getting out of it. Every hiring process I've been through already requires proof of identity at some point. Background checks, I-9s, whatever it may be. So you're essentially handing your ID to a third party just to get a badge that doesn't skip any steps you'd have to do anyway.
  • Nextgrid 8mo ago
    The badge could (I don't know, haven't done it yet) help you differentiate yourself in a sea of monkeys slinging ChatGPT'd profiles from a third-world boiler room. (whether it actually does or the monkeys now got a steady source of fake/stolen IDs is another matter)
  • Aurornis 8mo ago
    It does provide an advantage when applying to remote jobs at some companies. They try to filter scammer applicants out early and the verified profile is one signal they look for. Depends on the company, but in a competitive job market any extra signal can help. There are a crazy number of fake LinkedIn profiles out there that are used for scamming companies or people.
• ttflee 8mo ago
  I guess the day that a corporate AI could easily fake all my online existence is drawing nigh.
• pisanvs 8mo ago
  so their "shady" network of subprocessors are just the companies that already have all of your data? wow. I'm pretty sure I use most if not all of them in my own stack. In any case, I don't know how much more ad money they'll extract from knowing what I look like. Maybe beauty products?
  • lionkor 8mo ago
    It can be simple things like using your race, hair color, etc. to infer things about you and treat you differently.
• tqi 8mo ago
  > Persona extracts the mathematical geometry of your face from your selfie and from your passport photo. This isn’t just a picture — it’s a numerical map of the distances between your eyes, the shape of your jawline, the geometry of your features. It’s data that uniquely identifies you. And unlike a password, you can’t change your face if it gets compromised Is there anything special about a passport photo, or can that be done from any photo of your face?
  • rpdillon 8mo ago
    When I read selfie, I was thinking of one of those motion-based selfies where it's really a short video. And from the video, you can extract those measurements. I'm assuming it wasn't extracted from the passport photo, but rather the passport photo was used to verify that the selfie is of the same person that the passport belongs to.
• JohnMakin 8mo ago
  I was randomly forced to do this about a year ago, gave them everything except a passport (Tried providing other doc but support is either bots or overseas), got rejected, and lost a 15 year old legitimate business account. Could never find any explanation why I was targeted by this - it said it detected “suspicious activity” but I only ever interacted with recruiters, and only occasionally. Supposedly it is deleted after if you don’t go all the way through, but I do not believe it. This data ends up in very weird places and they can go fuck themselves for it afaic.
• laszlojamf 8mo ago
  I work in this space for a competitor to Persona, so take my opinion as potentially biased, but I have two points: 1. just because the DPA lists 17 subprocessors, it doesn't mean your data gets sent to all of them. As a company you put all your subprocessors in the DPA, even if you don't use them. We have a long list of subprocessors, but any one individual going through our system is only going to interact with two or three at most. Of course, Persona _could_ be sending your data to all 17 of them, legally, but I'd be surprised if they actually do. 2. the article makes it sound like biometric data is some kind of secret, but especially your _face_ is going to be _everywhere_ on the internet. Who are we kidding here? Why would _that_ be the problem? Your search/click behavior or connection metadata would seem a lot more private to me.
  • junon 8mo ago
    > Why would _that_ be the problem Because it should still be my choice as to what you do with it, which data you associate with it, and how you store it. Removing that choice is anti-privacy.
    • johndhi 8mo ago
      It's way less your choice what happens with a photo of your face in pretty much every other situation. When your face is on your LinkedIn profile, anyone can download it and do whatever they want with it. Legally. Here, the vendor has to tell you how they use it.
      • junon 8mo ago
        Someone downloading it randomly is not the same as me volunteering information said random person wouldn't otherwise have and having that information be stored next to my image in a database that can be breached. All for a checkmark next to my profile that says I'm a real human.
  • troupo 8mo ago
    > We have a long list of subprocessors, but any one individual going through our system is only going to interact with two or three at most. So, in aggregate, all 17 data leeches are getting info. They are not getting info on all you users, but different subsets hit different subsets of the "subprocessors" you use. And there's literally no way of knowing whether or not my data hits "two" or "three" or all 17 "at the most". > but especially your _face_ is going to be _everywhere_ on the internet. Who are we kidding here? Why would _that_ be the problem? If you don't see this as a problem, you are a part of the problem
• efavdb 8mo ago
  The privacy concerns are real. The need / demand for some verification system might be growing though as I’ve heard fraudulent job application (people applying for jobs using fake identities… for whatever reason) is a growing trend.
• petemc_ 8mo ago
  Persona do not seem to be competent guardians of such a trove of private information. https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona
  • illithid0 8mo ago
    Thank you so much for sharing this. Not only is it a great post, but the site invokes such warm feelings of an internet long lost.
    • wolvoleo 8mo ago
      True, I love the little cat chasing the mouse in particular.
      • moss_dog 8mo ago
        That's Neko! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_%28software%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_%28software%29
  • cloverich 8mo ago
    You can follow the discussions between that blogger and the CEO btw - https://x.com/rickcsong/status/2025038040599810385 https://x.com/rickcsong/status/2025038040599810385 Persona was not hacked. No database was breached. Frontend code source maps were leaked, which means unminified variable names were exposed revealing all the names of our features. These names are already publicly listed in @Persona_IDV's help center and API documentation.
  • remixer-dec 8mo ago
    as much as I like the design and the post, that website causes a massive memory leak in Firefox for Mac
    • foxglacier 8mo ago
      "reveals", not "causes". The memory leak, if it truly exists, was already present. It's not a website's fault for triggering it.
• cess11 8mo ago
  TFA should have mentioned that this junk has ties to security services in Five Eyes, through Paravision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paravision_(identity_verification_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paravision_(identity_verificat...
• smashah 8mo ago
  They are making the apparatus to destroy our freedoms.
• inquirerGeneral 8mo ago
  [dead]
• anoncow 8mo ago
  What should an ideal work website or social network be like?
  • deadbabe 8mo ago
    Text only, single font size, no whitespace.
    • anoncow 8mo ago
      Should it use real names?
• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• wolvoleo 8mo ago
  Wow that is insane. Persona is even linked to Peter Thiel. If LinkedIn asks me to verify then I'll just leave. I'd be very happy for it to fall over anyway so there is space for a new more ethical platform. Especially since Microsoft acquired it, all bets are off.
  • bicepjai 8mo ago
    In the era of agents, just create your own website. Also it is insane that this is happening.
    • Exoristos 8mo ago
      Yes. Then, you only have to convince Bing Copilot (et al.) to eventually list that website of yours.
      • bicepjai 8mo ago
        Are you saying we need our website to be shown in search results ? Can you elaborate on your comments ? Genuinely curious
• flkiwi 8mo ago
  This is only going to become more common. Companies are implementing checks using similar services (a) to prevent employment scams (where the person who interviews is not the person who works; usually the latter is a low-paid offshore individual) and (b) basic security authentication. It won’t be long before this sort of biometric validation starts showing up to authenticate users on regular websites and similar services, if it hasn’t already. I think the last one I had to do was to authenticate when activating a bank card.
  • wolvoleo 8mo ago
    Why would they need to do that? If you start working there you need to show up with your actual ID anyway.
    • flkiwi 8mo ago
      Remote, multi location workforces, supervisors and workers thousands of miles apart.
• dzink 8mo ago
  If you fly to US, Singapore, and many other countries these days, your face will be photographed and the photo will be matched to your passport photo via facial recognition (the machine tells you that outright, and does the action on the spot). They also take your right hand fingerprints.
  • Cider9986 8mo ago
    OK.
  • wolvoleo 8mo ago
    I think flying to a country is a whole lot different than a little tickmark on a website, sorry. Don't forget that if you fly to a country you are also bound by their laws. They can do anything to you as long as they can make it stick under their laws. It's one thing that people often don't realise when flying somewhere, you are basically giving a blanket submission to their laws! For this reason I have a long blacklist of countries I won't visit because they have laws I do not accept.
    • dzink 8mo ago
      I don’t say it to justify what linkedin is doing - there is no justification for that. I say it to warn those who are conscious of it that there are more places that will harvest the data and use it.
      • wolvoleo 8mo ago
        Sorry for my misunderstanding of your point.
    • Cider9986 8mo ago
      I am curious, would you be willing to share the list?
• cluckindan 8mo ago
  Just wait until GitHub starts requiring this.
• dhayabaran 8mo ago
  [flagged]
• game_the0ry 8mo ago
  Off topic -- the design for that blog is really slick. Added it to my "design swipe file." Less off topic -- there are some black hat marketers that (I think) buy or create verified profiles with attractive women, then they use the accounts for b2b sales through linkedin DMs. I find that amusing. Neutered corpo bois are apparently big poon hounds. Makes sense when you think about it -- that type of guy is craving female attention and probably does not have the balls to do anything in real life, so a polite DM from a fake linkedin thot would be appealing.
• sanex 8mo ago
  Those 17 sub processors are probably the most vanilla cloud computing companies you're going to find. Maybe you can complain about using one of the three LLM providers for doing OCR but there have been quite a few posts here about how LLMs are great for OCR.
• brainless 8mo ago
  I am in India and this is the reason I have not verified till now. I do not know how LinkedIn has the audacity to ask for this level of personal detail. This seems dystopian to me. LinkedIn is a social network and I wish there was an alternative.
  • sdkfjhdsjk 8mo ago
    I am in the USA (regrettably--my nation was conquered and subjugated long ago) and it IS dystopian, but there IS an alternative. The alternative is stay far away from digital slavery. Keep out of the slaughterhouse. Never approach it, and denounce it with every breath and fiber of your being. Do you have a phone? It's a surveillance device. Its entire purpose from day one was to enslave you. Do not participate. The question is, how much are you willing to give up in order to obtain freedom? What lengths will you go to? How badly do you really want it?
• replwoacause 8mo ago
  Good write up I guess, but I'm just so tired of all the AI-isms in every damn thing. "Your European passport is one quiet subpoena away" Why does the subpoena need to be quiet? If I search my chats with ChatGPT for the word "quiet", I get a ridiculous number of results. "Quietly this, quietly that". It's almost like the new em dash. There's many others all over this blog post I won't bother calling out. "Understanding what I actually agreed to took me an entire weekend reading 34 pages of legal documents." Yeah I'll bet it did. Or it took an hour of back and forth with ChatGPT loaded up with those 34 pages. I get it, we all use AI, but I'm just so tired of seeing the unmistakable mark of AI language all over every single thing. For some reason it just makes me think "this person is lazy". The CEO of a company my friend works for used Claude to write an important letter to business partners recently and we were all galled at her lack of awareness of how AI-sloppified the thing was. I guess people just don't care anymore.
  • ziml77 8mo ago
    > Or it took an hour of back and forth with ChatGPT loaded up with those 34 pages. That's exactly what I was thinking when I read that line. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with using AI to help decipher large legal documents, just be honest about it.
    • roywiggins 8mo ago
      Or just verify and write up its findings yourself, this is like pasting notes from a research assistant in verbatim. It comes across as pretty lazy!
  • ceroxylon 8mo ago
    I also find AI trope-ification articles exhausting to read, there's a reason I've fine tuned my system prompts to wipe all of it away. This reads like "Hey Gemini, I verified my passport on LinkedIn, write an impassioned exposé on Persona's privacy policy". When people leave in things like staccato language and Blogspot era emphasis, I feel like I might as well copy the Persona privacy policy and prompt my own AI(s) on the topic and read that instead.
• kopollo 8mo ago
  The only thing left is for them to want our asses.
• veltas 8mo ago
  Persona just got hacked so we're off to a good start.
• tagyro 8mo ago
  I almost fell for a very sophisticated phishing attack last December and most of the "verifiable" information was from my LinkedIn account. For each role I had described some of the tasks and accomplishments and this was used in the phishing message. Since then, I removed my photo, changed my name only to initials and removed all the role-specific information. It's a bit of a bummer as I'm currently in the process of looking for a new job and unfortunately having a LinkedIn profile is still required in some places, but once I find it, I'll delete my profile.
  • randycupertino 8mo ago
    I'm routinely shocked how biased people I work with are against individuals without a linkedin page. So many hiring managers across 15 years in my industry won't consider people without pages. One guy goes on rants how people are "sketchy" if they don't have a verified page and a lot of skill endorsements and testimonials! He'll pull up our vendors pages and check them out during meetings, complain if it isn't available or complete. I used to keep mine very minimal and locked down but I felt pressure from peers to flesh is out and keep it public which I hate.
    • Aurornis 8mo ago
      I agree for in-person jobs. For remote jobs with remote interviews, not having a LinkedIn page or having a LinkedIn page full of generic information that can be disproven by a quick background check are common traits of scam applicants. A friend’s employer started requiring more verification after they hired a group of remote workers who would some times connect from North Korean IPs when they made a mistake with their VPN.
• sigwinch 8mo ago
  Last year, someone’s experience when LinkedIn required interacting with Persona: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44435997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44435997
• DonThomasitos 8mo ago
  LinkedIn is Tiktokified social media brainrot disguised as serious work. „Hey - you‘re not wasting time, you‘re building your network and gather industry knowledge!“ LinkedIn is full if so called professionals who make a living by leveraging their brand. If you‘re not one of them, leave
  • dboreham 8mo ago
    Kind of. I've had a strict policy since LinkedIn launched of only connecting with people I've actually met and had at least some meaningful conversation with. Most of my contacts are former work colleagues. I think this makes my feed and audience a bit less spammy and grifty.
    • ericmay 8mo ago
      Never connect with anyone you haven’t met. If a work colleague or someone is on a call and doesn’t use video, no connection either. Don’t upload and store your resume on LinkedIn. There is no reason to do so. Also, I don’t recall where this setting is, but make the default behavior such that if someone finds you and tries to connect with you, they actually follow you instead. This cuts down aggressively on spammers because in order to actually connect with you they would have to view your profile, open the … menu, and then click connect. If they aren’t paying attention they’ll just follow you instead of connect which means you can broadcast to them but they can’t broadcast to you.
      • IshKebab 8mo ago
        Why? It's pretty useful for connecting with recruiters in my experience, and I don't think anyone can actually do anything just because they have a connection with you. I do ignore the connections from random students though tbf.
        • ericmay 8mo ago
          Connecting with recruiters is mostly a waste of time, and generally anyone can just fake being a recruiter. Once someone has a connection with you they can see your extended network, they know where you work, they find out all information you have shared with on your profile, &c. The recruiter may be using you to connect with someone else. You also start to consume their content since you are connected. Better to let them follow you and then when it's time to reach out to offer you a job/send an in-mail. Generally speaking, unless you operate at an elite level or at an elite institution, you're not getting a ton of worthwhile cold intros from recruiters.
• keithluu 8mo ago
  I believe OpenAI used Persona during the verification step that you must complete to use their SOTA models in the API. Not sure if it's still the case now. Anyway, I found that too much of a hassle and switched to other LLM providers.
  • 8cvor6j844qw_d6 8mo ago
    Similar experience here. A few months back I was evaluating one of the GPT-5 models for a side project. Turns out streaming via the API requires org verification, and I decided to look elsewhere. In hindsight, a good decision given what just came out about Persona.
  • Aldipower 8mo ago
    I just registered at platform.OpenAI.com two days ago for MCP Apps registration and had to do the Persona process! Now I could cry.
• yapyap 8mo ago
  welp, yikes
• skywhopper 8mo ago
  This is all bad, but I feel compelled to call out the “geolocation (inferred from your IP)” tidbit, because I can vouch that in the era of IPv4 scarcity, this value is often wildly wrong. When I’m at home, for the past 10 years, living in three different cities in that time, my ISP-granted IP address registered as incorrect locations (often by hundreds of miles) more often than not. And my mobile phone is always wrong, showing me in Colorado, St Louis, or North Carolina depending on the day. None of those locations are even close to correct. It’s truly a shame we are allowing these companies to steal and share and abuse our personal data, and it’s even worse that even the very basics of that data are so often blatantly wrong.
• afh1 8mo ago
  >The legal basis? Not consent. You read and agreed with the terms explicitly stating the data would be used to do those things, and it was not at all necessary for you to do that. What else do you want? It seems like consent isn't the issue. You just don't like what this company does, and still volunteer your data for them to do just that. Now you regret it and write a blog post? One thing is to be tricked or misled, or for a government to force your face to be scanned and shared with a third party. Another is to have terms explicitly saying this will be done, requiring explicit agreement, and no one forcing you to do it.
  • rmccue 8mo ago
    They consented to their data being used to verify their identity, not to train an AI on their data. Each separate purpose the data is being processed for needs its own basis.
  • SilverElfin 8mo ago
    > no one forcing you to do it This is where I disagree. You basically have to use LinkedIn to participate in today’s job market. These large platforms that are protected by network effects should be highly regulated so they cannot abuse your privacy and rights.
    • p-e-w 8mo ago
      Most privacy issues with today’s technology industry are caused by companies behaving like private service providers, when in practice they are somewhere between public utilities and government agencies in terms of their necessity and inevitability. In many companies, you don’t need to bother applying without a LinkedIn profile. You’re not even going to be considered for a position, full stop.
  • wat10000 8mo ago
    The plans were on file in a disused lavatory with a sign in the door saying Beware of the Leopard.
  • jungturk 8mo ago
    "Consent" and "Legitimate Interest" are legal terminology - they're two bases defined in GDPR and have different implications and requirements for balancing user and processor interests. When the author says that Persona claims the "legitimate interest" basis for these data, they're saying that Persona is trying to achieve maximum flexibility for using the data (since "consent" generally requires specific agreement on a specific use for the data, and the burden of maintaining the consent records, where "legitimate interest" does not). https://www.bulletproof.co.uk/blog/consent-vs-legitimate-interest https://www.bulletproof.co.uk/blog/consent-vs-legitimate-int...
• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• hliyan 8mo ago
  Here's what I found the most frightenting: > Hesitation detection — they tracked whether I paused during the process > They use uploaded images of identity documents — that’s my passport — to train their AI. > Persona’s Terms of Service cap their liability at $50 USD. > They also include mandatory binding arbitration — no court, no jury, no class action.
• rambojohnson 8mo ago
  everyone on linkedin sounds like chatgpt / claude.
• aestetix 8mo ago
  Peter Thiel knows about the anti-christ...
• edoceo 8mo ago
  I've been getting "Emails aren’t getting through to one of your email addresses. Please update or confirm your email." -- even tho I get messages from them every day. When you press the button to confirm the (working) email it states "Something went wrong". It happened last week too, I was able to fix it via their chat-help (human). Yesterday, their chat-help (human) was not able fix it and has to open a ticket. I pay for LinkedIn-Premium. So maybe this is just a scam to route me into Verification. Their help documents (https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1423367 https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1423367) for verifying emails doesn't match the current user experience. Then, in a classic tech-paradox, their phone support person told me they would email me -- on the same address their system reports emails are not getting through to. It felt like 1996 levels of understanding. We need to get back to de-centralised.
  • b00ty4breakfast 8mo ago
    I have no proof but I have suspicions that call-center systems are designed like this on purpose. low-level employees are hamstrung in what they can do, so then they have to hand it off to someone else, with varying degrees of ceremony, which either involves submitting a "ticket" or transferring you to some other department who may or may not have higher privileges wrt what they can do to help you. Then you might hit a wall where nobody can do anything because you're trapped in the gears of some byzantine IT system that decides what can and can't happen at any given time with any given situation. Then there's the labyrinth of the phone system itself littered low-bit smooth jazz and awful menus not often alleviated by AI voice recognition (which in my experience can sometimes be worse than the older voice systems) and the back and forth from one department to the next either because of the above or because someone or something keeps sending you to the wrong people to get your problems addressed. If it's not engineered, it's some kinda emergent eldritch abomination that has slowly accreted over the decades.
  • 1over137 8mo ago
    > Emails aren’t getting through to one of your email addresses Do you block remote image loading? They are probably measuring via tracking pixels.
• puszczyk 8mo ago
  This is a good write-up and useful content, but edit-wise it could be simplified significantly. Additionally, phrases like "let that sink in" are characteristic of poor LinkedIn content, which is a bit of an irony :)
• tagami 8mo ago
  Thank you for doing and sharing what I was hesitant to do. Now I know with good reason why.
• the_real_cher 8mo ago
  Modern day LinkedIn is a terrible company that violates privacy as bad as any other social media company. Also, the content on LinkedIn is terrible and fake. Need to start shunning these bad actors.
• lacoolj 8mo ago
  This is a little unnerving because I know I've had to provide similar ID verification somewhere online, but I can't remember where. And based on everything here, it was almost certainly Persona. I guess I'll just be in the corner crossing my fingers none of it is found in a hostile foreign land or used against me.
• aylmao 8mo ago
  I'll note that Persona's CEO responded on LinkedIn [1] pointing out that: - No personal data processed is used for AI/model training. Data is exclusively used to confirm your identity. - All biometric personal data is deleted immediately after processing. - All other personal data processed is automatically deleted within 30 days. Data is retained during this period to help users troubleshoot. - The only subprocessors (8) used to verify your identity are: AWS, Confluent, DBT, ElasticSearch, Google Cloud Platform, MongoDB, Sigma Computing, Snowflake The full list of sub-processors seems to be a catch-all for all the services they provide, which includes background checks, document processing, etc. identity verification being just one of them. I have I've worked on projects that require legal to get involved and you do end up with documents that sound excessively broad. I can see how one can paint a much grimmer picture from documents than what's happening in reality. It's good to point it out and force clarity out of these types of services. [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7430615492442091520?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7430615492442091520%2C7430718965896761344%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287430718965896761344%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7430615492442091520%29 https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7430615...
  • lysace 8mo ago
    All of those statements require trust and/or the credible threat of a big stick. Trust needs to earned. It hasn't been. The big stick doesn't really exist.
  • paulnpace 8mo ago
    Whelp, so long as the CEO says it's fine, we've no reason to worry about what's in the legal verbiage.
  • majormajor 8mo ago
    But why believe that when their policy says any of it may not be true, or could change at any time? Even if the CEO believes it right now, what if the team responsible for the automatic-deletion merely did a soft-delete instead of a hard delete "just in case we want to use it for something else one day"?
• peter_retief 8mo ago
  My ISP and my bank decided they needed my biometrics to have an account, same sort of thing
• g8oz 8mo ago
  It seems to me that if you let Persona verify your identity you're essentially providing data enrichment for the US government. In exchange for what? A blue tick from a feeder platform like LinkedIn, Reddit or Discord? No thanks. On the other hand it can be hard to escape if it's for something that actually matters. Coursera is a customer. You might want your course achievements authenticated. The Canada Media Fund arranges monies for Canadian creators when their work lines up with various government sponsored DEI incentives. If you're in this world you will surely use Persona as required by them. Maybe you're applying for a trading account with Wealthsimple and have to have your ID verified. Or you want to rent a Lime Scooter and have to use them as part of the age verification process. KYC platforms have a place. But we need legal guarantees around the use of our data. And places like Canada and Europe that are having discussions about digital sovereignty need to prioritize the creation of local alternatives.
  • egorfine 8mo ago
    > KYC platforms have a place Yes. In hell.
    • rsync 8mo ago
      No, in banking. Banks are in a unique and perfect place to collect and require KYC data. Because of the exorbitant privileges given to banks by state actors it should be easy to demand that the banks KYC be extensible to all other private transactions. Which is to say: if the banks do KYC, nobody else has to.
  • tokenless 8mo ago
    > On the other hand it can be hard to escape if it's for something that actually matters. E.g. Job applications, rental references, clearance at existing jobs, citizenship and visa applications, digital signing for things like business contracts.
• IOT_Apprentice 8mo ago
  So LinkedIn’s 1st CEO Reid Hoffman who was all up in relationships with Epstein & Bone Saw, yakking it up with monsters is the place to store your employment history? To provide a blue checkmark? To feed into copliot & be sold to AI weapons vendors & gruesome thugs like Palantir’s CEO & Chairman? Yikes.
• snowhale 8mo ago
  [dead]
• b8 8mo ago
  I wish more states would make this illegal like Illinois does.
• flumpcakes 8mo ago
  I am about to talk about "vibes" and "feelings" so please take this with a grain of salt: Does anyone else get the impression that they feel like the nefarious surveillance state is now real and definitely not for their benefit? It's been a long running trope of the men in black, and the state listening to your phone calls, etc. Even after Snowdon's leaks, where we learned that there are these massive dragnets scooping up personal information, it didn't feel real. It felt distant and possibly could have been a "probably good thing" that is it was needed to catch "the real bad guys". It feels different now. Since last year, it feels like the walls are closing in a bit and that now the US is becoming... well, I can't find the words, but it's not good.
  • weird_tentacles 8mo ago
    You are slooowwly waking up.
• kburman 8mo ago
  I don't get the whole idea of treating identity verification as a private enterprise problem. I realize it's easy to just blame LinkedIn or Microsoft here, but the core issue is architectural. We are trying to solve a public utility problem by building private honeypots. The government should provide an API or interface to validate a user, essentially acting just like an SSO. Instead of forcing users to upload raw passport scans to a third-party data broker, LinkedIn should just hit a government endpoint that returns an anonymized token or a simple boolean confirming "yes, this is a real, unique person." It gives platforms the sybil resistance they need without leaking the underlying PII.
  • egorfine 8mo ago
    We have exactly that in Ukraine. And in Poland. And in many other countries. This does not conform to the requirements of american KYC/AML provisions that require KYC service to store and leak PII.
• mamma_mia 8mo ago
  I've never used linkedin and have been more than fine, I feel that like with most social media that noise makes it seem more important than it is
• ollybrinkman 8mo ago
  The deeper issue here is that centralized identity verification creates honeypots. You hand over real identity data to verify yourself, and now that data lives in LinkedIn's systems indefinitely. The alternative direction is zero-knowledge proofs for identity — prove you're a real person without revealing which person. Projects like World ID are going this direction. The irony is that for AI agents, none of this matters: they don't have identities to verify, which is actually a feature.
• dave_sid 8mo ago
  Linkedin is the sleaziest thing I’ve seen on the internet since it was invented. The sight of it makes my skin crawl. The way they have desperately tried to onboard you via data that they seem to have that they shouldn’t. The way users even present themselves, posting updates that probably make them want to vomit themselves and shower in disgust even tho it’s not their fault, we need to find work. The bloody badge that you have to wear on your forehead to say you are available for work. The thought of the money they are raking in from recruiters and corporations. The way they try to be a little bit more like Facebook to make it look a little more ‘fun’. I hate it. Well they made it. They conquered the recruitment scene and I can’t think of a company I’d wish had gone out of business sooner. Am I wrong?
  • Exoristos 8mo ago
    I do find them the most loathsome of the social media platforms I visit. But here's another point -- recent investigations have shown they're not as good a resource for finding jobs anymore[0]. 0. https://www.inc.com/joe-procopio/you-cant-find-a-job-because-linkedin-went-full-tiktok/91296701 https://www.inc.com/joe-procopio/you-cant-find-a-job-because...
    • dave_sid 8mo ago
      Interesting article.
• po1nt 8mo ago
  >Count them. 17 companies. 16 in the United States. 1 in Canada. Zero in the EU. We regulated innovation out of the market. Why are you surprises that the only companies finding your data valuable are in the US?
  • danpritch 8mo ago
    Maybe it's just me but I don't count tracking people as innovation. Tell me what's innovative about it.
    • po1nt 8mo ago
      Tracking people is dystopian. But only collection of data allowed us to train the AI. I don't think EU has issues with tracking people unless a private party does it.
• CrzyLngPwd 8mo ago
  Blue tick is the thin end of the wedge, as is "think of the children" ID demands. It won't be long before we'll be required to verify ID for every major website.
• chickensong 8mo ago
  First mistake was using LinkedIn. More mistakes were made.
• newzino 8mo ago
  [flagged]
• sunaookami 8mo ago
  AI slop blogspam
• cco 8mo ago
  People who found this post interesting may also find this blog post about Persona a good read as well: https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona/ https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona/ tl;dr Persona shares your identity data directly with the federal governments of the US and Canada and likely is sharing data/works with ICE on the same.
• trinsic2 8mo ago
  If you are using Linked in for anything at this point, you are just asking for trouble. They have no interest in maintaining a healthy business ecosystem and you can see that with the way they try to close you into their system and the amount of AI slop that is on that platform.
• VerifiedReports 8mo ago
  The link isn't working, but anyone handing over unnecessary data to LinkedIn (AKA Facebook Pro) is probably too gullible to be online safely at this point.
• ceramati 8mo ago
  Why can't we have an ATproto LinkedIn? It seems pretty well suited.
• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• zquestz 8mo ago
  In your "WHAT YOU SHOULD DO" section, you missed the most important thing. Stop using LinkedIn, and stop using these terrible services that rip away our privacy.
• ndom91 8mo ago
  Isn't Persona the same sub processor Discord is using for their new age-verification :thinking:
• heliumtera 8mo ago
  You have you identity away but at least you have a blue checkmark! It could be a purple checkmark, thing about that!
• codr7 8mo ago
  LinkedIn is creepy even compared to Facebook imo. And the content is the worst trash you'll find online, bottom of the barrel.
• hajix007 8mo ago
  Good to know, ty!
• mcintyre1994 8mo ago
  I have a LinkedIn account and I occasionally have recruiters cold phone call me. They always tell me they got my phone number from LinkedIn. The first time this happened I deleted my number off LinkedIn, which was not shared according to their settings but was being used for 2FA. I still occasionally get these calls, and I'm unsure if LinkedIn is still letting people buy access to my deleted phone number, or if the recruiters are just lying and getting my number from some creepy stolen data service.
• umairnadeem123 8mo ago
  [dead]
• fireant 8mo ago
  KYC data is the most dangerous data that can leak right now. If your CC leaks, you will know almost immediately and can revoke it and generally will get your money back. Password leaks can be neutered with 2FA. Medical data leak can perhaps be used in a complex extortion, but generally for most people this data is worthless. KYC data on the other hand allows third party criminals who have bought your KYC on the black market to perform money laundering in your name (by opening bank accounts) and taking debt in your name. Generally you won't even know this is happening until it's too late and debt collectors come. And it's not like you can revoke your biometrics/liveness check/selfie and who knows if revoking your passport/id card would actually work. IMO it's much better if a dedicated KYC processor, like Persona, with actual security team/mindset, handles this rather than random website inside their zendesk instance. But there still needs to be extremely strict regulation surrounding this data. Also while CC data will be getting less dangerous over time due to AI fraud detection and mandated 3DS, KYC data will IMO be getting more dangerous over time because more fintech/govtech will rely on it.
• simpleusername 8mo ago
  I suddenly had my account locked down unless I provide my government ID, just like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44435997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44435997. Never did LinkedIn state it was Persona carrying out the validation, and in the email they stated the data would be promptly deleted. I'm now learning this is not true; companies removed from LinkedIn store my data for however long they want. I feel this is solid grounds for a lawsuit, particularly in states such as California.
• Crowberry 8mo ago
  I did that process on a whim after being buggered for weeks on end by LinkedIn. I immediately regretted it and realised that I had shared my private data for a fucking linkedin badge… I didn’t look into it back then but this article confirms my suspicions and dreaded feeling!
• ymolodtsov 8mo ago
  Being uselessly worried about stuff like this is such a European thing. Wrote an extensive blog post. Is there any actual harm happening? No, not even a hint of it, just some hypotheticals. It’s better to dedicate your time to interesting problems.
• bambax 8mo ago
  I've been maintaining a fake LinkedIn profile for over 10 years (in addition to the real one). It has a significant amount of connections (people with the "open to work" badge tend to accept connection requests from total strangers). This fake profile often receives offers from recruiters; it's quite fun. I wonder if I could get it verified using a fake passport photo? I'd try it but I'm afraid of being found out and losing it.
• Teocali 8mo ago
  the moment I saw “Persona” n the verification page, I noped out.
• hluska 8mo ago
  I log into LinkedIn approximately once every five years. While this is apparently ‘career suicide’, I have never lost an opportunity as a result. Serious question: Why do we keep putting up with this bullshit? Of course they share data and of course Persona does fucked up shit with the data they generate about you. LinkedIn is the same company that leaked everyone’s passwords. There is absolutely no reason to trust LinkedIn besides mass hysteria. Seriously folks; we can all stop using it and then it will die. In LinkedIn tradition, I should end this with wild claims and hashtags. #LinkedInKickedMyCat #winning #lackofcreativity #bueller.
• rixed 8mo ago
  > they sit invisibly between you and the platforms you trust. Is Linkedin that "platform you trust"? Aren't they the company that used some dark pattern to get your mail account password so they could swallow your contacts at registration? If you trust Linkedin you are already in trouble even before you start scanning anything.
• mehulashah 8mo ago
  This is sick.
• Loxicon 8mo ago
  When they first did this, I read the TOS before verifying. After almost throwing up, I deleted my linkedin account and tagged it "data farm".
• n9ooooooooooo 8mo ago
  Boycot all the companies that require id verification. When no one uses them they will be incentiviced to abolish id checks or support user controlled digital certificates that validate with fine grained control what data is revealed or certifiefld.
• technate4eva 8mo ago
  Yeah! Nobody ever lies! Especially not about personal data, and especially not in the tech space!
• justpollen 8mo ago
  This is a great breakdown. The $50 liability cap on your biometric data is almost comically dystopian. What strikes me is that LinkedIn has made verification feel mandatory through social pressure, not actual necessity. I work in the LinkedIn ecosystem (building https://www.justpollen.com https://www.justpollen.com, an AI content advisor) and even among power users, nobody can articulate what the blue checkmark actually does for them beyond "it looks more legit." Meanwhile you've handed a US company the mathematical geometry of your skull. The cost-benefit here is absurd once you read the fine print.