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Meta pauses an AI training program that tracks employees' keystrokes after an internal leak

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the US Capitol, wearing a red tie and blue suit jacket.
Meta founder, chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
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Meta is pausing an internal AI training program after sensitive data was accessible across the entire company, according to screenshots obtained by Business Insider.

A screenshot showed that the leak exposed employees' private conversations, performance data, and transcriptions. The incident was classified as a SEV 2 on a scale of 0 to 5, with 0 being the most severe.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed the incident and said the company is investigating.

"We have carefully designed this program with privacy safeguards, and while we have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees, we're pausing it while we investigate," the spokesperson said.

In April, Meta announced the AI training program, called the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), which was intended to improve the company's AI models by using its staff's keystrokes and mouse movements as training data. The program, which is mandatory for most staff, sparked a backlash from employees who felt uncomfortable with their data being recorded, Business Insider previously reported.

This leak is causing frustration within Meta, according to screenshots seen by Business Insider, with employees critical that data wasn't locked down from the start.

"I am incensed," one employee wrote on Monday about the recent leak in an internal group, according to a screenshot obtained by Business Insider.

"I don't see any evidence of malicious access, but the fact that this data wasn't locked down as originally promised is super frustrating," the employee continued.

The leak is the latest in a string of recent security incidents for Meta. Last month, a flaw in its AI chatbot allowed people to hijack multiple Instagram accounts. A rogue AI agent also caused a severe incident in March, the Information reported.

Correction: June 22, 2026 — An earlier version of this story misstated Meta's severity scale. 0 is the most severe on its scale.

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Charles Rollet
Charles Rollet is BI's tech correspondent in San Francisco. Prior to joining BI, Charles worked at TechCrunch covering startups and VC. Charles is based in the Bay Area, where he enjoys hiking with his dogs. You can contact Charles securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811.
Pranav Dixit
Pranav Dixit
Pranav Dixit is the Meta Correspondent at Business Insider based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes about Meta’s products, policies, and internal workings while examining how the company’s decisions shape how billions of people connect and communicate.Previously, Pranav was the India-based technology correspondent for BuzzFeed News, covering the impact of Silicon Valley’s largest companies on the culture, society, and politics of more than a billion people in South Asia. He has also been a senior news editor at Engadget and ran technology coverage at the Hindustan Times, one of India’s largest national newspapers.Pranav’s reporting has shed light on the human consequences of Big Tech’s quest for growth in emerging markets, and sparked widespread conversations about the impact of American technology companies on the Global South. In 2019, he won Syracuse University’s Mirror Award for a boots-on-the-ground feature about how WhatsApp misinformation sparked gruesome lynchings in rural India. He has also reported from Kashmir, a volatile geopolitical hotspot, documenting the world’s longest-running internet shutdown.His work has been widely cited by major national and international publications, and he has been featured on the BBC, Al Jazeera, and podcasts such as Vox Media’s Land of the Giants to discuss his work. He has also spoken in journalism classes including at UC Berkeley’s graduate journalism program. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vox, Time, The Information, and Al Jazeera.Pranav moved to the United States in 2021 from New Delhi, India, to be a fellow at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, where he studied the evolution of the American tech press and ways newsrooms around the world can cover technology and society more effectively.Got a tip about Meta or anything else in Silicon Valley? Contact Pranav via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1408-905-9124), or email him at pdixit@insider.com or pranavdixit@protonmail.com. You can also reach him on WhatsApp at +857-753-3949 or DM him on X (@PranavDixit) or BlueSky (@pranavdixit.bsky.social).Pranav keeps sources anonymous. Please use a non-work device to reach out.Expertise: Meta, Facebook, WhatsApp, Llama, AI, Threads, Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg, social media, platforms, immigration