Meta has paused a controversial employee‑tracking program after an internal security review found that highly granular keystroke and screen‑capture data from staff laptops was far more widely accessible inside the company than intended.
The program was part of Meta’s Model Capability Initiative (MCI), which collected mouse movements, click locations, keystrokes, and screen content from employees’ work laptops to help train internal AI systems.
The program also introduced an obvious risk. Collecting highly sensitive employee activity data is one thing. Keeping it properly secured is another.
According to reporting based on internal documents and employee accounts, the data wasn’t just collected. It was left accessible across thousands of internal data tables, including AI prompts, transcriptions, private conversations, and performance‑related information.
After coverage of the exposure, Meta scaled back and then paused the initiative, amid sustained internal backlash and questions about whether privacy protections were ever more than a reassurance in a memo.
