Meta Platforms is rolling out new software on its US employees' computers that tracks keystrokes, mouse movements and screen activity to train its AI systems, Reuters reported on 21 April. The move has triggered widespread backlash within the company, according to communications obtained by Business Insider, which reported the employee pushback today.
The internal announcement said that the programme is designed to help AI models better understand how people interact with computers, such as using keyboard shortcuts and choosing from dropdown menus. "For agents to understand how people actually complete everyday tasks using computers, we need to train our models on real examples," the post said, adding that Meta employees can help the company's models get better simply by doing their daily work.
“Starting today, we're rolling out a tool for US-based FTEs and Contingent Workers that captures computer inputs like mouse movements, click locations and keystrokes as well as screen content for context,” the post announced.
Employees push back
Employees voiced concerns and unease about the initiative.
"This makes me super uncomfortable. How do we opt out?" was the top-rated comment in response to the internal announcement, according to a post on Meta's internal workplace communications site seen by Business Insider.
The "angry-face" emoji was the most common reaction to the original announcement, the report noted.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth responded in the thread, saying, "There is no option to opt out of this on your work provided laptop." This comment received a mix of crying, shocked and angry-face emojis, indicating that employees are not too happy about the initiative, even as Meta assured that the collected data will not be used for any other purposes.
"There are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content, and the data is not used for any other purpose," a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider. Across the company, Meta has been doubling down on AI internally, establishing Meta Superintelligence Labs unit last year, rolling out AI Weeks, and reorganizing staff into “AI pods.”
The tracker won't be used on phones, says Meta
While employees cannot opt out of the tracking software programme, monitoring of activity on company devices has long been standard at Meta, with staff informed of this upon onboarding. As such, the new programme is viewed more as an extension of existing policies rather than a brand-new policy shift, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The post says the software is limited to a list of commonly used work applications, like Gmail, GChat and Metamate, an AI assistant for employees. It also says it only applies to computers, not to employees' phones.
“This only applies to your computer and not your phone. To learn more about how the tool works, including privacy safeguards, check out the wiki and FAQs,” the company said in the post.
