After spying on its employees, Meta exposed their data

For reference, Meta deployed the Model Capability Initiative program, an internal system designed to capture employees’ mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes in order to train Meta’s artificial intelligence models. Not surprisingly, this program did not delight employees, even after the announcement of a 30-minute daily break with no data collection.In total, 1,600 of them signed an internal petition opposing it, particularly because of the risks of breaches and unauthorized disclosure of the collected data. Today, it seems they were right about this too, unsurprisingly.

Confidential employee data exposed within the company

According to an internal security note reviewed by the media outlet Wired, Meta left information potentially sensitive, collected from its employees’ laptops, accessible to anyone within the company. The data was stored on servers accessible to any employee of the company, without restriction or a locking system. The internally circulated security note states that “employee data spread across 45,000 Hive tables [databases containing structured information about personnel]” was exposed. According to documents reviewed by the media outlet Wired, these tables included employee activity, notably “the entirety of the prompts and transcriptions, private conversations, as well as data about people and performance.”

Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton confirmed the information, while playing down the situation: “We carefully designed this program with privacy safeguards.We currently have no indication that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees ». Anonymous sources at Meta also indicated that the incident was now considered closed.

Widespread discontent among Meta employees

If the incident is considered closed, Meta’s chief technology officer (CTO) Andrew Bosworth nevertheless makes some admissions of failure, stating that the implementation of the monitoring programfell short of the standards set in his confidentiality review and that the conclusions drawn from the incident would be shared. This incident therefore adds to Meta’s long list of lingering controversies.

On an internal company forum where staff exchange jokes, an employee shared a meme from the television series The Office showing Jim Halpert holding up a sign reading: “0 days since our last absurdity ”. A seemingly friendly joke that does not really reflect the working atmosphere within the company. Indeed, some employees are quick to compare working conditions at Meta to those of a “gulag”, in the context of a race to develop AI that is turning into a nightmare.

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Source: Wired