Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

Meta paused an employee-tracking program after an internal security incident exposed data collected through the initiative to workers within the company. The Model Compatibility Initiative tool, which launched in April to US employees, collects computer inputs such as mouse movements, click locations, keystrokes, and screen content, ostensibly to train AI systems to operate computer software the way humans do. Employees had previously protested against the program over privacy, security, and personal liberty concerns, and a company engineer issued an internal security notice stating that databases filled with MCI information had been exposed to anyone inside the company. Meta stated it was pausing the program to investigate while maintaining that it had no indication of improper data access, though critics argued the security lapse reflected risks that workers had previously raised that leadership had dismissed.