Meta hits pause on tracking employee keystrokes to train AI after internal leak

Meta paused its program tracking employee keystrokes and mouse movements for AI training after an internal leak exposed private conversations, performance data, and transcriptions across the company. The incident, classified as severity 2, affected 45,000 hive tables, prompting an investigation amid employee backlash and privacy concerns.

Just two months after Meta announced plans to track employee keystrokes https://www.fastcompany.com/91530650/meta-tracking-employees-ai-training-legal-not-ethical and mouse movements to train its AI https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence models, the company said it would pause the program after an alleged internal leak. According to a screenshot obtained https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-ai-training-data-leak-exposed-employee-activity-across-company-2026-6 by Business Insider , employees’ private conversations, performance data, and transcriptions were accessible across the company. On a scale of 0 to 5—0 being the most severe—the incident was classified as a SEV severity 2. Meta confirmed the incident to Business Insider . According to documents reviewed by Wired https://www.wired.com/story/meta-accidentally-let-employees-access-each-others-keystroke-data/ , a security notice said that “employee data across 45,000 hive tables”—a data storage format—were exposed, which included employee activity such as “full prompts and transcriptions, private conversations, people, and performance data.” In response to Fast Company’ s request for comment, a Meta spokesperson said: “We have carefully designed this program with privacy safeguards, and while we have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees, we’re pausing it while we investigate.” Meta employees had strong reactions https://www.fastcompany.com/91542004/meta-is-using-mouse-tracking-software-on-employees-now-theyre-pushing-back to the internal AI training model, called the Model Capability Initiative, or MCI. Staffers could not opt out of being tracked by the software on company laptops, which gave rise to privacy concerns. Following this tension—and 10% of Meta’s workforce being laid off https://www.fastcompany.com/91531705/meta-will-lay-off-10-of-workforce-company-announced-today —CTO Andrew Bosworth said that company morale https://www.fastcompany.com/91562037/meta-cto-company-morale-is-probably-one-of-the-worst-its-ever-been-after-layoffs was near “the worst it’s ever been.” In May, Meta told Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com/91542004/meta-is-using-mouse-tracking-software-on-employees-now-theyre-pushing-back Still, employees created an online petition protesting the use of the software. They posted flyers across Meta offices calling on their colleagues to sign it. “When employees asked what privacy reviews were conducted, including any ‘people data reviews’ which are required for processing employee data , no completed privacy reviews were provided,” read the petition https://mcipetition.com/ , which had 1,600 signatures as of June 3. “The outlined privacy mitigations were vague, and leadership’s confidence in them appeared limited—evidenced by the selective opt-out afforded to executives.”