LinkedIn App Class Action Lawsuit Claims Users’ Privacy Was Breached

LinkedIn Corporation designed a mobile application that surreptitiously reads the contents of the clipboard on users’ Apple devices without their consent, an app privacy class action lawsuit alleges.

LinkedIn is a social media network that helps users promote their businesses, look and apply for jobs, post job openings, and find potential job candidates. Many LinkedIn features can be accessed with a free account. However, LinkedIn also offers premium services and tools for recruiters to locate potential hires.

Users have the option to access LinkedIn via the website www.LinkedIn.com or via mobile apps designed to operate on Apple and Android devices. According to the privacy class action lawsuit, LinkedIn offers the Apple iOS app for download on the Apple App store, and can be installed on a phone, tablet or other device that uses the iOS operating system.

These devices generally allow users to copy data within a program and paste the data elsewhere. The copied data is stored in the Apple device’s “clipboard” or “pasteboard.” Users may use the clipboard to manipulate data for their personal use.

According to the LinkedIn app privacy class action lawsuit, the clipboard is typically used to copy and paste text, website addresses, photos, voice recordings, passwords, credit card numbers, cryptographic keys, and other personal information.

On June 22, Apple made its upcoming version of its operating system available for beta testers. Part of this iOS 14 update included a new feature that alerts users when their clipboard is accessed by an app or website.

“As early as July 2, 2020, software beta-testers discovered via the Clipboard Access Detection System that the LinkedIn App was secretly and continually accessing the clipboard without users inputting any command directing it to access the clipboard,” the privacy class action lawsuit alleges.

The LinkedIn app allegedly accessed a user’s clipboard contents as frequently as after every keypress.

“Accessing the clipboard without user input is unexpected, unanticipated, and unjustified behaviour by the LinkedIn App, as LinkedIn has no need to access the clipboard except in very specific cases,” according to the LinkedIn app privacy class action lawsuit.

Plaintiff Jonathan Schmid of British Columbia is a registered LinkedIn user and had the LinkedIn app installed on his iPhone during the Class Period.

He filed the LinkedIn app privacy class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and a proposed Class of Canadians who installed and used the LinkedIn app on an Apple device in Canada since the date the company began reading clipboards on the device without their consent, up until July 4, 2020.

Many LinkedIn app users may be unaware that the app was accessing the contents of their clipboards because iOS 14 is not currently available to the general public, the privacy class action lawsuit says.

“Through this suit, Canadian users seek to hold LinkedIn Corp accountable for its unlawful conduct and to obtain damages,” the LinkedIn app privacy class action lawsuit asserts.

Jonathan says he regularly copy and pasted data using the clipboard function on his Apple devices. Some of this information reportedly included personal text and email messages, photographs, voice recordings, websites he visits, search topics, credit card information, and passwords.

According to the LinkedIn app privacy class action lawsuit, Class Members “have suffered a serious violation of their privacy.” Jonathan asserts that LinkedIn has profited from its access to users’ private information to “build a more fulsome profile” of users for LinkedIn’s advertising customers.

He says LinkedIn engaged in this invasive conduct knowing that its users had not consented to providing the app with this private data and that they were unaware of the setting change. The social network continued to engage in this alleged wrongdoing until it was faced with public outcry that motivated it to modify the LinkedIn app’s behavior on July 4, 2020.

The privacy class action lawsuit asserts claims for breach of provincial privacy legislation and intrusion upon seclusion.

Jonathan is seeking statutory damages, punitive damages, and an injunction requiring LinkedIn to disable the intrusive practices by the LinkedIn app unless a user expressly enables the function.

LinkedIn is no stranger to class action lawsuits in Canada. Earlier this summer, the social network was hit with a Canada class action lawsuit alleging it displays advertisements for businesses with users’ names and profile pictures without their consent.

Do you use the LinkedIn app? What do you think about the LinkedIn app privacy class action lawsuit? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below! 

Jonathan is represented by Anthony A. Vecchio of Slater Vecchio LLC.

The LinkedIn App Privacy Class Action Lawsuit is Jonathan Schmid v. LinkedIn Corporation, Case No. 207361, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

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