@briankrebs In other news, is this the same Persona that's "supporting" Discord Age Verification? https://www.therage.co/persona-age-verification/

@briankrebs

I did everything right. I left LinkedIn two days ago.

@briankrebs I wish @thelocalstack had opened up with the clarification that they are in the .EU. I think it's totally valid to center their .EU experience in their blog. But since there is a global audience, it's worth pointing out that in the US, Personna is not used, CLEAR is used. I doubt CLEAR is any better and probably worse. But, I would have liked to see it added to avoide confusion from folks.

@briankrebs original post: https://mastodon.social/@thelocalstack/116099561686307777

@briankrebs excellent deep dive!
Gee, I wish pur politics would read such summaries more often!
After the discord breach, this is a blatant proof that the big tech companies are simply unable to be trusted to take responsibility to make identity or age verification!

The CEO of Persona responded to this post, saying they wanted to clarify about the identity verification process. They said:

"The only subprocessors (8) used are: AWS, Confluent, DBT, ElasticSearch, GCP, MongoDB, Sigma Computing, and Snowflake

All biometric personal data is deleted immediately after processing.

All other personal data processed is automatically deleted within 30 days. Data is retained during this period to help users troubleshoot.

No personal data processed is used for AI/model training. Data is explicitly used to confirm your identity.

The subprocessors used do NOT include Anthropic, Groqcloud, or OpenAI. The referenced subprocessor list is the superset of subprocessors used across all customers which is unfortunately misleading - we are updating our documentation to make this clearer going forward (thank you for helping us realize this). Our customers select which products are used which determines which subprocessors are used."

@[email protected] hi, reading through this and i assume you're posting this after my research piece came up since you mention all the checks persona are running. could you please attribute credit?

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verification-vendor-persona-left-frontend-exposed

https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona

@briankrebs fuck lol

@briankrebs Glad I closed my LinkedIn account. It's become an unfriendly place, especially with the owner, Microsoft, being so closely involved the the US administration, security services and military. I don't trust them at all.

@briankrebs
Yeah, NO!

@briankrebs wth is #linkedin ?

@briankrebs

This explains why Koch is promoting Ai to the gullible in an alliance with Microsoft.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2025/07/17/bill-gates-charles-koch-and-three-other-billionaires-are-giving-1-billion-to-enhance-economic-mobility-in-the-us/

To manipulate elections
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/us/politics/koch-network-2024-election-trump.html

Getting people accustomed to giving up their jobs to slave owners using detention center labor is going to be a tough sell.
https://jacobin.com/2024/09/alabama-convict-labor-fast-food

https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/

https://www.denverpost.com/2026/02/16/colorado-prison-labor-slavery-ruling-servitude/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/prison-labour-the-last-stronghold-of-slavery-in-the-us/

Workers have AI threats hanging over their heads
https://fortune.com/2026/02/17/why-your-boss-loves-ai-and-you-hate-it-profits-end-of-capitalism/

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/02/ai-improving-wages-job-quality/

@briankrebs What's more, LinkedIn locks out users for no reason, forcing Persona verification to regain the account. Officially they claim to allow providing a notarized affidavit instead of Persona for verification, but my experience was that after providing the affidavit (to an unlisted email; once locked out, there's no documented support contact) I was then told to go through Persona again.

I was seemingly locked out for simply having changed my 2FA to not use their app, but a code.

@briankrebs The raping of PII across platforms is out of control and our officials are too clueless and spineless to take action against it. I highly recommend Terms of Service Did Not Read: https://tosdr.org/en/. It's my go to when (100% of the time) I have neither the time or inclination to swallow the legalese vomit supplied by site ToS. Down with the ToSers... erm... I mean the people who make ToS hard to read.

@briankrebs I'm not on LinkedIn. It pisses potential employers, and I get asked "why?" And I respond "Because nothing about work should construe a social relationship of any kind". Maybe that's why I'm sill unemployed :\

@briankrebs Omg Thanks for the information

@briankrebs I shut down my account back in September. It was constantly getting spam from 'recruiters'.

@briankrebs Deleted Linkedin few weeks ago.

Well not linkedin... my account obviously 😂

#usdigitaldetox

@briankrebs that's scary stuff.

I deleted my account a while ago because of the AI slop and discriminatory policy changes but I feel sorry for anyone who unknowingly submits their data to those companies

@briankrebs So glad I left that horrible platform a few months back.

Deleted acct.

The startup world is just as guilty of this. Everyone's building the same productivity SaaS with slightly different colors. The real innovation happens when someone ignores what everyone else is doing

@briankrebs That’s kinda creepy! I didn’t know LinkedIn shared so much stuff. Maybe I’ll think twice before uploading my selfie now… or just delete the app.

@briankrebs

Their implementation of this was what convinces me it was time to shitcan LinkedIn. Did so about 6 months ago before this all happened and never looked back.

@briankrebs hard pass

@briankrebs What happens to your LinkedIn data for people who haven't verified? Do third party companies or AI get your data anyway? Can you say you don't want your data shared?

@briankrebs

Don’t forget the 300+ companies which already read everything you do, verified or not.

@briankrebs @mrswhitebelly

@briankrebs When it comes to social media and apps, my entire family laugh at my usual motto: 'I don't trust them'....they think I'm paranoid, lol!

Makes no difference - I *still* don't trust them, and this confirms it, lol!

@briankrebs Ouch, I didn't know that, I am already verified, so I'm doomed 🐧

@briankrebs
I just shared this and the first answer I got was "well, shit, but that's what most companies use and if I don't jump through their hoop I'll never get a job".

I don't share this view but I also want to read from everyone here. Any suggestions?

@briankrebs It is called LinkedIn for a reason.

@briankrebs
I just shared this and the first answer I got was "well, shit, but that's what most companies use and if I don't jump through their hoop I'll never get a job".

I don't share this view but I also want to read from everyone here. Any suggestions?

@briankrebs If only I did not litterally needed it if I want to get a job one day

@briankrebs
was just thinking of deleting my linked in YESTERDAY..wondering where they fall in the mix of privacy abusers...

@briankrebs Gross.

@briankrebs @NMBA they keep asking me to, but I'll never verify myself. I don't care if anyone believes who I say I am. When it becomes mandatory I'll delete my account.

@briankrebs Wow.... Thanks for posting!!

@briankrebs So anyone who uses LinkedIn is an AI guinea pig. At least there's disclosure.

This probably applies to everything else presented to you by Microsoft.

@briankrebs Do you know, where do they get the facial geometry data from?

@briankrebs https://www.nolto.social/ "The source code will remain available for anyone who wants to explore it, improve it, fork it or continue the idea."

@briankrebs After the MS takeover, data was passed to aggregators that then resold linkedin data to agencies, maybe you noticed the increased spam a few years back... the leak was due to changes in t&c of linkedin after the takeover. Getting this corrected cost me a huge amount of time and legal threats towards: the agencies, through the aggregators to linkedin and the internet archive. Total abuse pyramid and its clear to me now, money betrayed the integrity of the owners of linkedin!

@briankrebs will you now delete your linkedin account ?

@briankrebs I would never hire a person who uses LinkedIn.

@briankrebs
Thank you for sharing this, means a lot coming from you. There's more to dig into on the LinkedIn data chain, this was just the surface.

@briankrebs
Linkedin? Read my lips: 🖕

@briankrebs

Zum DI.Day am 01. März lösche ich meinen Account 🫡

@briankrebs Companies dealing with artificial intelligence are fine because their result is the synthesis and distortion of data. Worse off are companies that do not deal with artificial intelligence; they store your data without loss.

@briankrebs damn. That's a lot of data.

@briankrebs

like an idiot, i did this a while ago, thinking it would help get a job
...
still don't have a job

totally not worth it, I feel ashamed

@briankrebs The minute they said I had to download their app to verify, I was out. I have no social media apps on my phone and have no intentions of changing that for anyone.

@briankrebs Do You Want To Start Getting $50 - $500 Payments Daily?
Pay close attention to the next page for full details about how to start flooding your account with $50 - $500 payments 👇

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@briankrebs it's a Microsoft company. What do you expect?

@briankrebs wonder if this is related to those persona leaks since LinkedIn uses persona: https://cybernews.com/privacy/persona-leak-exposes-global-surveillance-capabilities/

https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona/ (source)

@briankrebs this is a big #privacy yikes so i'm tagging them in.

@briankrebs I'm feeling relieved that I never put myself on LinkedIn.