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Meta has scaled back a controversial employee monitoring program designed to help train its artificial intelligence systems, following weeks of backlash from workers over privacy and workplace surveillance concerns.
According to Reuters, the company has introduced new controls allowing employees to pause data collection for up to 30 minutes at a time and request exemptions from the initiative altogether.
The changes relate to Meta's Model Capability Initiative (MCI), a program launched earlier this year to capture data on how employees use their computers in order to help develop AI agents capable of performing software-based tasks.
The move comes after reports emerged that employees were raising concerns about the scope of the monitoring and its impact on their privacy.
Among the complaints raised were reports that the software significantly increased home internet usage, with some employees allegedly exhausting a month's data allowance within a matter of days.
Other concerns centered on claims that the monitoring extended beyond basic activity tracking to include code changes, computer sleep and wake cycles, and URLs copied to a device's clipboard.
Meta responds to employees over AI training tool
An internal memo seen by Reuters said Meta had introduced "several optimizations" to reduce the tool's impact on laptop battery life and acknowledged concerns raised by employees since the rollout began.
"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 within Meta's Superintelligence Labs division, wrote in the memo.
Meta declined to comment publicly on the changes.
Turning workforce data into early warnings for high-cost employees
The company previously said the tool was designed to help train AI systems by providing examples of how employees complete everyday computer-based tasks. At launch, Meta said the data would not be used for any other purpose and that safeguards had been put in place to protect sensitive information.
Privacy and surveillance concerns
The MCI program first attracted attention in April after reports that it would track mouse movements, keystrokes, clicks, and software navigation activity on computers used by U.S.-based employees.
Workers reportedly complained that the system collected far more information than initially understood and raised concerns about how the data could be used.
Some employees reportedly claimed the software was consuming significant amounts of internet bandwidth when used on home networks, leading to spikes in data usage.
The controversy intensified after Reuters reported that internal documentation indicated MCI would capture the contents of emails and direct messages sent to U.S. employees, regardless of where the sender was located.
That raised questions about whether the program could create compliance challenges under the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), particularly where communications involving EU-based employees were concerned.
Meta previously said the tool had only been installed on computers used by U.S. employees and that non-U.S. staff had been informed when their communications could potentially be captured through interactions with American colleagues.
The latest changes suggest Meta is seeking to address employee concerns while continuing to pursue the initiative as part of its wider AI strategy.
The company has invested heavily in artificial intelligence in recent months and has made significant workforce reductions as it reshapes parts of the business around its AI ambitions.
Workplace surveillance under increasing scrutiny
The developments come amid broader concerns about the growth of employee monitoring technologies and how worker data is being collected, shared, and potentially used to support AI development.
Recent research from Northeastern University found that employee monitoring software is no longer confined to remote work environments and is increasingly being deployed in traditional office settings. The study examined nine monitoring platforms and found that all shared some worker information with external third parties, including major technology firms such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.
Researchers found that the platforms were capable of collecting data including keystrokes, mouse activity, browsing history, device information, and, in some cases, precise location data. Worker information was reportedly transmitted to more than 145 domains linked to advertising and technology companies.
David Choffnes, Professor at Northeastern University's Khoury College of Computer Sciences and co-author of the study, warned that employee data collection increasingly extends beyond the employer-employee relationship, creating wider privacy concerns once information enters broader technology and advertising ecosystems.
While the Northeastern research did not conclude that the collected information was being used to train AI systems, it arrives at a time when scrutiny of workplace data collection is intensifying. Reports of Meta's monitoring program, alongside other examples of worker behavior being recorded to support AI and robotics development, have added to concerns that increasingly detailed surveillance is becoming a normalized feature of modern working life.
