Meta used AI to tag workers who took leave to be laid off, lawsuit claims

The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in the northern district of California, points to Meta’s workforce reduction of about 8,000 employees earlier this year. Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The suit alleges that Meta used a “constellation of internal artificial intelligence systems”, including AI performance ratings and keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, to pinpoint who to lay off.

“Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work,” reads the 71-page complaint. Instead, the 26 workers listed in the lawsuit allege the company used AI systems “to score, rank and select employees for inclusion on the list”.

The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary court ruling to stop Meta from finalizing the layoffs while they pursue their ?claims, along with relief that could include reinstatement, back pay, lost equity, benefits and other damages.

AI decision-making in the workplace is becoming an increasingly fraught issue as employees raise concerns about bias, privacy and trust, and regulators are scrutinizing the legality of such tools. States, including California, Colorado and Illinois, have passed laws or regulations within the last couple of years seeking to protect workers from AI-related bias and “automated decision systems”.

The lawsuit against Meta alleges that the company’s AI tools gather data on employees’ performance rankings, productivity and other metrics, and that those inputs do not exist when workers are on medical or family leave. For people with disabilities, those metrics might be reduced.

“The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves,” reads the complaint.

One of the plaintiffs is a scientist who was on approved pre-birth pregnancy leave – she was notified of her layoff just two days before she gave birth. Another plaintiff is an engineer who said he received a “lowered rating” because of time he took off for an injury. Another, a manager on medical leave, said he was let go 16 days into his time off.

A Meta spokesperson disputed the allegations. “These claims lack merit and are not based on facts,” he said in an email to the Guardian. “Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”

Meta introduced its AI employee-monitoring program earlier this year. It was designed to capture workers’ keystrokes, mouse activity, browser history, along with messages, emails and location data on company devices. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, said the idea was to train the company’s AI systems on its employees’ behaviors.

“The AI models learn from watching really smart people do things,” Zuckerberg said in an internal meeting, according to the Information. “The average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks.”

The lawsuit claims Meta quietly launched the monitoring program without employee buy-in. Meta told employees about it through a “low-visibility internal post – made by an engineer rather than a senior leader”, reads the complaint. “On at least some teams, employees received no consent or acknowledgment prompt at all, and, at least initially, there was no way to opt out.”

Employee backlash quickly racked up over the last few months, prompting Zuckerberg to announce that he was pausing the program in June. His about-face came after more than 1,600 employees signed a petition saying the program violated their privacy.

In Monday’s suit, lawyers for the plaintiffs asked the court to immediately approve an independent audit into Meta’s AI tools. They say it would provide clarification into why the 26 workers, who were on leave or approved for disability accommodation, were let go. “Meta deliberately kept the mechanics of its selection process secret from its employees,” the lawyers said in an emailed statement.

The plaintiffs are still Meta employees until 22 July, when their termination is set to begin, according to the lawyers. Citing retaliation concerns, the attorneys are asking the judge to allow the plaintiffs to remain anonymous and for a court-order to preserve the workers’ employment status while arbitration is pending.

“Once these separations are final, the harms are irreversible: employer-subsidized health coverage lost during pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and active medical treatment; time-bound leave rights extinguished; unvested equity forfeited; and immigration consequences triggered,” the lawyers said.