Fake accounts

LinkedIn's User Agreement lists what members agree to do and not do, including rules about identity1. Members agree to use their real name, to give accurate contact and identity information and to keep it updated1. They also agree not to misrepresent their identity, create a profile for anyone other than themselves, or share accounts or use or try to use another person's account, including through shared log-in credentials or copied cookies12. LinkedIn Ireland's Digital Services Act (DSA) risk assessment report adds that profile photos must accurately reflect the member's likeness and that profiles may not carry misleading information about qualifications, work experience, affiliations or achievements2.

LinkedIn enforces these rules with a funnel of defenses, which its DSA report for 2024 to 2025 describes in five steps4. First, a trained computer system gives every registration attempt an abuse risk score: low-risk attempts register right away, high-risk attempts are prevented, and medium-risk attempts are challenged to show they are real people4. Second, LinkedIn groups accounts with characteristics in common, finds groups that show a statistically abnormal distribution, assesses them with trained computer systems and acts on the accounts in them4. Third, trained computer systems examine account activity for bad behavior typical of abusive accounts, such as sending too many connection invitations, or for patterns that differ unusually from ordinary account behavior4. Fourth, member reports provide information about previously undetected accounts that can then undergo further assessment by these systems and review, and fifth, LinkedIn reviews accounts manually based on internal findings and member reports4. A dedicated Account Abuse team runs LinkedIn's impersonation defense, which includes verifying profiles, matching name to title to company, and tracking member IP addresses2.

Two Microsoft patents show further techniques for spotting fakes, but they are Microsoft's, not LinkedIn's own description, and they do not say what LinkedIn runs today78. A 2019 Microsoft patent describes catching accounts that copy a real person's name and identity details: when a new or updated account matches other accounts and also behaves suspiciously, access is limited until the account holder's identity is verified7. A 2021 Microsoft patent describes catching reused profile photos by turning each photo into a set of numbers and checking it against stored photos for near-duplicates to decide whether a profile is a duplicate or fake8.

For July to December 2025, LinkedIn reports that automated defenses stopped 97.8% of the fake accounts it stopped, and manual investigations and restrictions stopped the other 2.2%5. Earlier figures concern sign-up: LinkedIn's DSA report for 2022 to 2023 said that in the last transparency reporting period, 87.4% of detected fake accounts were blocked during registration, and Oscar Rodriguez wrote in September 2025 that LinkedIn blocked over 80.6 million fake accounts at registration from July to December 2024910.

Oscar Rodriguez's January 2026 job-search guidance explains how fake accounts and scams show up for people looking for work6. He wrote that the majority of scams and fraud happen through fake accounts, which LinkedIn typically removes quickly6. Because of that, bad actors quickly ask to move the conversation off LinkedIn before their account is removed, and he wrote that scammers are 2x more likely to do this than a genuine interaction6. He also wrote that scammers are 5x more likely than a genuine interaction to come from outside your network6.