It finally happened to me. I dared to log into my LinkedIn account and update my job status because I left my job. I dared to update LinkedIn while I was on vacation in Hawaii.
When I tried to login, I found my account locked for security and they just needed a quick peek at my government ID to make sure I’m legit.
Don’t worry, only LinkedIn and Persona have access they say. Ah yes, Persona, which has ties to Peter Thiel, will keep it safe.
Customer Support helpfully tells me:
To ensure the security of your account, we need to verify your identity. We understand that this may be an additional step, but it’s crucial for maintaining your account’s safety.
How is uploading my ID helping the security of account? I thought that’s what two-factor authentication did for me?
Please note that we’ll only use your identification documents for identification verification purposes. These documents will be automatically removed approximately 2 weeks after being received. If this issue comes up again, we may require you to present this information again.
They’ll automatically remove it approximately 2 weeks after being received. Approximately is a weasel word. They say they’ll delete the documents, do they keep any metadata? Any references to license ids? And what could cause them to require me to present this information again if I already present it once?
I’m tired of the slow and steady reduction of privacy. I understand that there’s a lot of fraud, especially with LLMs making it trivially easy to scrape and interact with data, but the way forward isn’t sending more personal information to tech companies that just gobble up more information and combine it with data brokers.
I wrote about the problems of the advertising survellience industry already. I guess I’ll be locked out of my account for the foreseeable future.
If anybody knows anybody at LinkedIn who can help me, please reach out.
