{"id":1965034,"date":"2026-05-31T14:21:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T11:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1965034"},"modified":"2026-05-31T14:21:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T11:21:53","slug":"meta-faces-employee-backlash-over-tracking-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1965034","title":{"rendered":"Meta faces employee backlash over tracking tool"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Home<\/a>><\/span>Tech<\/a><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Meta faces employee backlash over tracking tool<\/h1>\n
The tool could also violate EU privacy law, Reuters reports.<\/div>\n
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\n \u00a0By\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anna Iovine<\/a><\/p>\n
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\"anna<\/p>\n
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Anna Iovine<\/div>\n
Associate Editor, Features<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n Anna Iovine is the associate editor of features at Mashable. Previously, as the sex and relationships reporter, she covered topics ranging from dating apps to pelvic pain. Before Mashable, Anna was a social editor at VICE and freelanced for publications such as Slate and the Columbia Journalism Review. Follow her on Bluesky<\/a>.\n <\/div>\n

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In April, Reuters reported that Meta would track U.S. employees’ mouse movements<\/a> and keystrokes to train its AI agents. Weeks later, Meta laid off 8,000 employees<\/a>, citing its AI push. Now, the company is facing backlash from remaining employees over the tracking tool, called Model Capability Initiative (MCI), which may also violate European Union privacy rules<\/a>, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n

Last month, the company apparently told U.S. employees that it launched MCI to track how they work \u2014 including clicks and dropdown menu navigation \u2014 to build AI agents that can perform software tasks, Reuters reported. They were also told this would only impact employees in the U.S. and that privacy safeguards were in place.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO:<\/span>Meta plans to make an AI pendant and more smart glasses soon<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

Some employees have already complained about MCI, calling Meta an “Employee Data Extraction Factory,” Reuters reported. One complaint is that the tool is using so much data that workers’ home internet usage has spiked, and in some cases, using a month’s quota in days. Another complaint is that MCI is more over-reaching than Meta lets on, extending to code changes, a computer’s sleep and wake cycles, and URLs copied to a computer’s clipboard.<\/p>\n

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An internal post about this apparently disappeared, two Meta employees told Reuters. Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold told the outlet that the post was “fundamentally inaccurate.”<\/p>\n

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In a document reviewed by Reuters, Meta stated that MCI would capture the contents of any email or direct message sent to U.S. employees, regardless of the sender’s location. According to a legal expert who spoke to Reuters, this may violate the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The question is whether data collection of EU resident data is considered “incidental” and whether the tool can pass a “purpose limitation” test.<\/p>\n

Arnold told Reuters that MCI was installed only on U.S. employees’ computers and that, “In the interest of transparency, we notified non-U.S. employees \u200cthat it was deployed on the computers of U.S. colleagues they may email or \u2060chat with in the normal course of business.”<\/p>\n

“We carefully considered and mitigated potential privacy risks in both the development and deployment of this tool, and we are committed to complying with applicable laws and regulations,” Arnold stated to Reuters. <\/p>\n

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