Facebook-parent Meta is rolling back some elements of its mouse tracking plans for US employees after weeks of backlash about privacy concerns. The change was noted in an internal memo on Tuesday.
As per the revised plan, employees can pause data collection for 30 minutes. They can also request exemptions. The development comes after some employees were unhappy about surveillance style data collection policy changes.
The initial plan involved collecting employee mouse movements, keystrokes, and other actions for AI data training through a software. However, the new memo by Stephane Kasriel, a vice president in AI Superintelligence Labs, said that the team behind the software has added several “optimisations” for higher efficiency.
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New changes in the software include efforts to reduce battery usage. Employees had complained that the system consumed too much data and caused home internet usage to spike.
"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," Kasriel said in the memo seen by Reuters.
Last month, Meta announced that it was installing a new tracking software in the US-based employees' computers to capture mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes for training artificial intelligence models.
The launch came during a far-reaching restructuring at the company, leading to backlash among staffers, who called it an “Employee Data Extraction Factory”, Reuters reported.
It also led to protests by employees at several Meta US offices as they distributed flyers in meeting rooms, vending machines and bathrooms. These flyers urged staff to sign an online petition against the move.
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While the software currently remains deployed for US-based employees, Meta may face regulatory troubles in the European Union, where tech companies face legal clashes over how they collect and deploy data.
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