Meta Platforms' plan to collect highly detailed records of its US employees' computer usage to train AI models is far more extensive than previously known, according to internal documents seen by Reuters. Crucially the system is capturing data from non-US personnel in the process, inviting fresh complications.
The Facebook and Instagram owner launched the tool, called the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), last month. Designed to capture mouse movements, clicks and dropdown menu navigation across more than 200 apps and websites, the tool aims to build autonomous AI agents capable of handling everyday software tasks.
While Meta stated that MCI only installs on US devices and contains strict privacy safeguards, workers have heavily criticized the project. Internal posts reveal complaints that the tool consumes immense bandwidth, exhausting entire monthly home internet quotas within days.
Furthermore Meta's internal documents explicitly acknowledge that if a US employee emails or chats with a colleague located outside the US the entire conversation is recorded. Because the company dissociates the data from employee identities, it cannot be individually searched or deleted a direct clash with European privacy rights.
Privacy advocacy groups warn this may violate the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). "Taking an employee's chat and ingesting it into an AI model is incompatible with the initial purpose of work communication," said Kleanthi Sardeli a legal expert at the privacy group NOYB.
Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold stated that potential privacy risks were thoroughly mitigated and the focus remains on user-computer interaction rather than screen content. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), Meta's lead EU regulator, confirmed that Meta claims European data collection does not fall within the tool's primary purpose.
An internal analysis by a Meta worker revealed that MCI links directly to the company's data security software. This allows it to log unencrypted data regarding clipboard content code changes, URLs and computer sleep cycles. The employee warned the tool is building "a complete behavioral model" to entirely replace knowledge workers. The post has since vanished from internal message boards.
