LinkedIn locked me out of my own account. The only way back is through Persona — a third-party service that wants a photo of my passport, a scan of my face, and a recording of my movements (liveness detection: turn your head, follow the dot, so a still photo can’t stand in for me). The stated reason: “unusual activity.” The real reason, of course, is big tech spearheading a movement toward absolute control over people.
As someone currently unemployed, does anyone have any tips for finding jobs not through LinkedIn?
They did the same shit to me. I refused and pestered them with numerous e-mails demanding them to just delete my account instead of reopening it. Finding a link to their contact form was a nightmare (it’s hidden all the way at the bottom of their privacy policy). I also emailed legal@linkedin.com, dpo@linkedin.com, helpdesk@linkedin.com, support@linkedin.com and a number of other generic addresses just to be sure they would receive something.
I got three LLM sounding replies where they asked me to follow a link to verify my identity with a government issued identity document, but after a couple more e-mails where I wrote that providing Persona or LinkedIn with my identity documents is against my personal security policy, they just caved and reopened my account calling it a “temporary measure to protect my account”. Set a new password, logged in and deleted my account immediately. Good riddance.
Thanks for this post. Saving it in case I ever need it.
Can we all just agree to adopt a new open source option? That is the only way companies will find us for next jobs. They unfortunately contacted me using LinkedIn in my last 2 jobs so, it is impractical to leave without having a replacement.
On today’s episode of “How can a a company be this extremely fucking incompetent?”
Same bullshit happened to me when they froze my account after their AI bot flagged me with on false positive for “discrimination” (I’d posted a job with a legitimate language requirement).
They then made me go through some humiliating ritual of having to write them an email with a written promise that I wouldn’t break any discrimination rules, which I hadn’t done to begin with, but the support clown wouldn’t reinstate my account until I’d done their specified grovelling.
FWIW. I have defeated live cam with subtle random movement with an AI generated face video looking straight ahead with slight movement, blinking, slightly wider shot (wider shot mean angles aren’t as obvious and a little random movement was sufficient).
I served this back through OBS (Open Broadcast Studio).
But it’s fucked that we need to resort to tricks.
That’s the worst part, their justification for more information to make one safer doesn’t even work.
For-profit security theater.
I think it’s worse than security theatre. I am not usually a tin foil hatter, but im convinced tech isn’t fighting back on this because it’s a great opportunity to hone in that personal advertising.
Notice how they push back on EVERY legislative move or new regulation. But, suddenly now that the same tech can help them out, crickets… ?
Agreed, it’s as if you would let the locksmith go through your mail, indefinitely, after they fixed your frontdoor.
Absolutely ridiculous, right? Well… not so much when your entire digital life goes through gatekeepers like Google, Apple or Microsoft.
Genuine question, what’s the privacy respecting alternative?
Like don’t ask for the passport?
It is a website, this info is not needed at this stage
I meant as a platform. Because Microsoft barely ever listens
you can close your social media accounts before or after you get locked out
Can’t. They won’t allow me to delete it without verifying my ID with a scan of my face and DL.
so the only option at the moment is to abandon the account and not log in ever again
That’s correct
Same thing for me in the US. They just didn’t provide a reason and their Tech Support will not respond.
Which country should I change my location to, which provides the best consumer protection and doesn’t allow companies to demand my KYC documents?
Unironically, North Korea
