Meta has updated its controversial employee tracking software to allow workers to have a 30 minute reprieve from being surveilled, according to a leaked memo.The US tech giant announced in April that it would be capturing employees’ mouse movements and keystrokes in order to train its artificial intelligence systems.Referred to internally as the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), the purpose is to allow AI models to replicate how people interact with computers.The move faced backlash within Meta, with some staff viewing it as a breach of privacy and an attempt to accelerate the replacement of human roles with AI.A petition against the initiative gathered more than 1,500 signatures from workers, with some describing it as “very dystopian” and likening Meta to an “employee data extraction factory”.In response, Meta will now allow its staff to pause the tracking tool for “up to 30 minutes at a time”, as well as request to be exempted from the tracking altogether."While we remain confident in the privacy protections we put in place at launch, which went through several layers of risk review, we have heard your concerns about personal data on work devices, battery life, and wanting more control over when capturing happens," Stephane Kasriel, a vice president in Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, wrote in an internal memo seen by Reuters.A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment on the memo.Virginia Doellgast, a professor of employee relations and dispute resolution at Cornell University in the US, said that Meta’s policy raises several concerns about data privacy and consent.“Workers are producing additional value for their employers – are they being compensated for this, and are they given a choice to opt in or opt out? Probably not,” Professor Doellgast told The Independent when the policy was first revealed.“The screen capture part of the software could capture personal employee data. We have weak rights on data privacy in the US, but in other countries there are clear rights protecting personal data in the workplace.”