How to find out everything LinkedIn knows about you in their databases. Prepare to be shocked.
I thought I knew, overall what they stored, and when I figured out how to get access to everything they have stored about me, wow, was I surprised?
Each profile owner has access to the entire history on LinkedIn via the Data Archive Page. It will provide access to
- Articles
- Connections
- Imported Contacts
- Messages
- Invitations
- Profile
- Recommendations
- Registration
- Rich Media
First of all, I recommend you download your LinkedIn Connections at least once every 3 months and more frequently if you are an active user.
Here is where you can access your data once you are logged in to your account:
Click here to access your LinkedIn Data Archive
- Scroll down the section labeled How LinkedIn uses your data.
- Select either The works -which will provide everything, and the choice I recommend the first time you do this or select individual categories that you want to access.
- Select Download Archive.
- Then you will need to wait for an email from LinkedIn notifying you that your data (or some of it) is available to download. This will take 30 minutes or so for the first email to come in. For many users with years of history, this first email will include some of your data, but not all. A second email will arrive within 24-48 hours with the balance of your data.
Take some time to look through what is in the package. Your entire history of LinkedIn activity is being stored. I was surprised at the level of detail that has been kept in their databases.
With all the conversation recently about Privacy, Facebook Congressional hearings, data breaches of companies too numerous to mention, this brings home the significance of this conversation.
I encourage you to get your Data Archive and be aware of what is being stored.
On this same page, there are all sorts of other information available to you such as:
- Salary data
- Personal demographic data
- Social, Economic and Workplace research
Pretty amazing isn’t it?
Clearly, LinkedIn is not alone in storing this volume of data and detail. Every social media platform is doing the exact same thing. Kudos to LinkedIn for making it relatively easy to get access to your information.
Now you can understand why and how those ads and suggestions pop up everytime you log in to the internet with the exact items and topics you were just searching for or commenting on with friends.
Go do this now, request your archive.