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Meta Pauses Employee Usage-Tracking Program During Data-Access Investigation
Meta halted a company-wide effort to record staff mouse clicks and keystrokes for AI training. The pause followed a petition from nearly 2,000 workers and the discovery that some data could be accessed by any employee. The company is investing up to $145 billion in AI this year.
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Meta paused its company-wide program tracking employees' computer usage on Monday. The program, started two months earlier, recorded mouse clicks and keystrokes to train artificial intelligence models. BBC News reported that some of the collected data had been left potentially accessible to anyone inside the company.
A Meta spokesman stated the program, named internally the Model Capability Initiative, was "on pause for now" while the company investigates. " The pause came after weeks of worker opposition. Nearly 2,000 Meta employees signed a petition demanding the program be cancelled.
Meta had initially responded by allowing workers to disable tracking for up to 30 minutes at a time. " Another employee said the lack of consent over tracking left staff angry, even though many supported improving AI models. "I've never seen morale here so bad," the employee said.
Meta has conducted extensive layoffs and reorganized staff around AI initiatives. The company is spending up to $145 billion on those efforts this year. Employees openly insulted management during an internal meeting on the changes, according to a report in Wired.
