Meta lets staff pause AI training data collection for 30 minutes at a time

Meta is scaling back a programme that logged employees' keystrokes and mouse clicks to train its artificial intelligence models, after weeks of internal criticism. An internal memo sent on Tuesday introduces new controls that let staff pause the data collection for up to 30 minutes at a time, or ask to be exempted from the initiative altogether.

What the memo changes

According to Reuters, which saw the memo, the message was written by Stephane Kasriel, a vice president in Meta's Superintelligence Labs unit. He said the team behind the tool had introduced "several optimizations" to reduce its impact on laptop battery life, after employees reported that it consumed so much data that their internet usage surged while working from home.

"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 wrote.

How the plan was received

The tool, called the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), was announced in April. Meta said at the time: "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them." The company added that the data would not be used for any other purpose and that safeguards were in place to protect sensitive content.

Employees were unconvinced. One Meta worker, who asked not to be identified, told the BBC that having their actions train AI models felt "very dystopian", especially as staff expected further job cuts. Another person who recently left the company described the tracking tool as "just the latest way they're shoving AI down everyone's throat". A petition against the move has gathered more than 1,500 signatures.

Why it matters

The episode shows how the race to build capable AI agents is colliding with workplace privacy expectations. Meta is not the only company collecting real user behaviour to improve its models, but the scale and the directness of the MCI programme — recording clicks and keystrokes on work machines — made it a flashpoint inside the company.

Meta declined to comment on the record. The revised controls do not cancel the programme; they give employees a limited way to step out of it, and it remains unclear how exemption requests will be assessed.