LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking social media site, faces three class action lawsuits brought under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). Individuals who made appointments through the websites of three healthcare companies brought suits, alleging that LinkedIn was violating the CIPA by accessing their private personal and healthcare information. They claim that LinkedIn installed its tracking tool, LinkedIn Insight Tag, on the companies’ websites to gather data about users, including their gender, sexual orientation, and health conditions for which they were seeking treatment.
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn provides job search and career development services to its more than one billion users worldwide. However, LinkedIn also provides marketing tools generated by the LinkedIn Insight Tag, which businesses can embed in their websites to track visitor activity. Using the Insight Tag, LinkedIn matches website visitors with their LinkedIn accounts and then offers companies consumer engagement analytics based on the collected data. Companies, in turn, use the data to enhance and target their marketing strategies.
LinkedIn’s Tag is similar to Meta’s Facebook Pixel, another tracking tool that transmits data about users’ website interactions to Meta. Since 2022, Meta has been hit with dozens of class action privacy lawsuits, including one alleging that it unlawfully collected users’ private health data after installing Pixel on hospital and healthcare provider websites.
In the LinkedIn lawsuit, the plaintiffs argue that the company needs to be more transparent about its use of the Insight Tag and the data that it collects. LinkedIn users must agree with a privacy policy, a cookie policy, and, in California, a separate privacy disclosure to use the platform. However, despite language in its privacy policy stating it will collect personal data only when lawful, the plaintiffs claim that the company has unlawfully collected sensitive medical data from users. According to the lawsuits, users often are unaware of which websites have embedded the Insight Tag and, therefore, cannot legally consent to the collection of their information.
As a result, companies operating public websites should understand their data usage tools and practices and how they might impact consumers. Companies should always be transparent about how they collect data from users and how they use it so that users can consent to these data collection methods – if they choose.
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