Some brief points in relation to the reported pausing of Meta’s employee tracking initiative:
- Appears that pausing of the initiative was prompted by concerns over security measures, with the BBC reporting that the program was halted by Meta “after realising some of the collected data had been left potentially accessible to anyone inside the company” - see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq615g3z36po.
- Unclear what the legal basis would be for processing of personal data as part of such an initiative. Doesn’t seem reasonable to expect participation in the initiative to be a condition of employment, and seems likely that many employees would not consent to, or reasonably expect, such data to be processed as part of their employment for the purpose of training AI models.
- Employee data within the initiative may be contributing to the training of AI models that eventually automate tasks that form part (or all) of employee roles. Creates a strange dynamic where employees are potentially contributing to their own obselesence in a given role.
- Employees may perform tasks within their employment that do not fall within their role description and which may reasonably be considered ‘sensitive’. For example, tasks that relate to their health and wellbeing in the workplace. Interesting to understand whether data relating to such tasks were/are/would be captured by such initiative(s), and the safeguards that would be put in place to protect such data.
Read guidance on monitoring workers from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the United Kingdom at: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/employment/monitoring-workers/
Read the BBC article about the start of the initiative at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvglyklz49jo
Read the BBC article about the pausing of the initiative at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq615g3z36po