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Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

reuters.com

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Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#351

Post by the-peter »

satvikpendem wrote: post #138
cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? How about a company-owned toilet? It's their property as well.

You're right, maybe they should put cameras in there too. But there's a reason we don't yet every worker still explicitly or implicitly knows not to use their work computer for personal tasks, as people can and do get fired for doing so.

I make it a point to use the office bathrooms only to excrete food I ate from the work cafeteria. Personal food I ate at home I excrete in my personal bathroom.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#352

Post by Symbiote »

satvikpendem wrote: post #145
cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a ridiculous statement. Everyone I know at my company uses work laptops for personal stuff. It's not in the land of freedom though, so great leaders like yourself can't fire people at will. TBH at this point I don't believe you are a real person.

Consider, do they ever go on explicit websites on that computer? No? Because they know that's surveiled while a personal computer for the same purpose is not. As I said, people do know the difference and might do light personal things like googling something unrelated to work but wouldn't do e.g. banking on a work computer. If they do, well, it'll be their fault if they ever get fired for doing so. The fact that you…

The semi-official policy of my employer in Denmark is you can watch porn on a work computer, so long as you're paying for it. (This reduces the risk of malware etc.)

I say semi-official because someone asked the question at a Q&A training thing with IT, and that was the IT manager's response.

You can see the EU's guide here: https://www.edps.europa.eu/data-protection/data-protection/r...

> Limited private use of these tools is often permitted, generating a level of expectation by employees for privacy: employers should not routinely read employee' emails or check what they are looking at on the internet.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#354

Post by pjerem »

j45 wrote: post #343
2ndorderthought wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as it's funny to dunk on meta this type of surveillance is becoming the norm. Failed start ups are selling all their emails, chats, commits, etc for companies to train on. Most job offers now come with statements about how you don't have right to your likeness, or your personal network I think most people assume that's for photo ops, but ... Yea. I expect more and more of this. products and product features r…

You never really owned what you typed or said at work in to their laptops, into their accounts using their software.

Idk in the US but in France you are allowed to have personal data on your work computer.

Though you have to label it as personal (like creating a « Personal » folder or label and your employer can still access it in case of suspicion but he must do it in your physical presence and accompanied with a witness, generally a representative of the employees.

So you theoretically don’t have full privacy on this computer but you can’t be sanctioned for this usage.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#355

Post by raincole »

Avicebron wrote: post #188

Yeah, this is crazy, remember when engineers were actually engineers and that meant something? Imagine asking to install spyware on your lawyers' firms' company laptops because you didn't trust them not to make some deal with the judge. Or demanding 24 hour monitoring on everything a doctor does because you need to review the footage at any time. EDIT: While we are here, let's do this for politicians as well :), publ…

> Imagine asking to install spyware on your lawyers' firms' company laptops because you didn't trust them not to make some deal with the judge.

This sounds unironically a good idea.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#356

Post by johntash »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #341
catcowcostume wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes they could have accessed logs before but there’s a difference between directed checking after incidents and active surveillance at scale.

Not really from the perspective of my own risk/reward calculation. I don't know in advance what's going to be considered an "incident" that will make corporate IT suddenly want to search my work computer. Better to simply have a policy of never using a computer my work controls for personal data, especially when I already have my own computers for that that I use regardless of what job I happen to be working at.

Keep in mind this isn't just about personal data on work hardware. It also leads to things like "we noticed you didn't move your mouse or type anything for 45 minutes, what were you doing?" type of micromanagement.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#357

Post by isodev »

Blackthorn wrote: post #169
dagmx wrote: post #42

This is going to be a huge chilling factor for employees. You’d no longer be able to disent, or discuss anything non-work related with even the slightest expectation of privacy. Yes they could have accessed logs before but there’s a difference between directed checking after incidents and active surveillance at scale.

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving group of people. My irony detector is sparking so badly I think it's about to blow.

I know right, so much pain and horror has been unleashed in the world by Meta… I have zero sympathy for their employees. Someone should’ve said no to developing this tech in the first place but here we are.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#359

Post by rimliu »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #83
dagmx wrote: post #42

This is going to be a huge chilling factor for employees. You’d no longer be able to disent, or discuss anything non-work related with even the slightest expectation of privacy. Yes they could have accessed logs before but there’s a difference between directed checking after incidents and active surveillance at scale.

Tbh that's to be expected, the work machine is the company's property and there shouldn't be any expectation of privacy. I work at a tech firm in India, and we are encouraged to create skills.md based on the traits of our colleagues, with the intention of reducing key personnel risk. A handful of engineers were let go as the result of a re-alignment, and their AI counterparts are actively maintaining their code. I wo…

a bathroom stall is also a company property. Does the note about not expecting privacy extend there too?

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#360

Post by reroute22 »

resident423 wrote: post #243
dagmx wrote: post #42

This is going to be a huge chilling factor for employees. You’d no longer be able to disent, or discuss anything non-work related with even the slightest expectation of privacy. Yes they could have accessed logs before but there’s a difference between directed checking after incidents and active surveillance at scale.

Meta employees are not typically known for their deep concerns about privacy.

Don't confuse employees with execs. It's a gigantic company with almost 80k employees.

Most cultures around the world are acutely aware that the actions and opinions of their leaders are not a reflection of behaviors and opinions of regular citizen.

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