Data exposed internally by controversial employee tracking software

Left potentially dead Sensitive information collected from employee laptops is accessible to anyone within the company, according to an internal security notice reviewed by WIRED and three current employees familiar with the issue.

The data, collected as part of a contentious initiative Training artificial intelligence modelsis believed to include keystrokes, mouse clicks, and content displayed on the computer screens of Meta employees in the United States.

Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton confirms that the company is investigating the security issue. “We carefully designed this software with privacy safeguards in mind, and we have no indication at this time that Meta employees were improperly accessed,” he says.

The security notice sent on Monday noted that “employee data across 45,000 hive tables” had been exposed. These spreadsheets included employee activity such as “full claims, audio transcripts, private conversations, people, and performance data,” according to documents seen by WIRED.

Some employees at Meta quickly seized on the security failure, saying in internal forums that it confirmed concerns they raised when the company began tracking workers’ laptops in April as part of a program known as the Modular Ability Initiative.

Comments about the incident posted on internal forums on Monday included questions about how Meta’s privacy reviews failed to prevent the breach, and whether everyone whose data might have been compromised would be allowed to attend a meeting to discuss what went wrong, according to posts seen by WIRED.

In an internal forum where employees are known to share jokes, one employee posted a funny photo of… The office Jim Halpert’s character holds a sign that says “0 days since our last bullshit.”

Sources at Meta, who were not authorized to speak publicly, told WIRED that the incident has now been classified as closed, meaning it has likely been resolved. In an internal employee post on Monday, Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, said the tracking software’s implementation fell short of standards outlined in its privacy review, and that findings from the incident would be shared.

Last month, there were more than 1,600 employees at the tech giant Signed an internal petition protested the laptop surveillance efforts, warning that “collecting this data exposes both security and regulatory risks to Meta, including the potential for breaches and unauthorized disclosure.” The petitioners also expressed concerns about what they saw as a lack of safeguards established by Meta. As one engineer wrote: A widely shared internal memo Saying that their laptop screen had been scraped to obtain training data without their consent was an invasion of privacy and amounted to exploitation.

Meta executives have previously defended the data collection project, saying it is necessary to train AI systems to use computer programs the way humans do. in Company meeting audio leaked Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that “AI models learn from watching really smart people do things,” and that “the average intelligence of people working at this company is much higher” than the average contractor who might be hired specifically to produce this kind of data.

But after widespread employee outcry, Meta this month began offering more exemptions to monitoring, including allowing employees to briefly stop monitoring so they can complete sensitive tasks, such as scheduling an in-person appointment, according to two people familiar with the matter. Some employees are still calling for tracking to stop altogether.