privacy

Perez Hilton’s family has revealed that his children were home when his mental health crisis began to unfold, and now they’re asking the media for space so the family can safely return home.

In a statement published on the celebrity blogger’s website on Thursday, Hilton’s family said the events of the last several days had been “nearly unbearable.”

“Just minutes before the public livestream incident, Perez’s children, niece, and sister were inside the home,” the statement read. “When it became clear that Perez was experiencing a severe mental health crisis and harming himself, they immediately fled to protect the children from witnessing any further trauma.”

On Tuesday night, Miami police responded to an influx of calls after a disturbing video was livestreamed on TikTok in which a bloodied Hilton harmed himself repeatedly with a box cutter and knife. Frightened fans and moderators from the social platform were among those who called authorities.

After surrounding Hilton’s Miami residence, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said around 9 p.m. that he had been “safely recovered and transported by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue to a local hospital, where he is receiving medical attention.”

In the family’s statement on Thursday, they said that their highest priority right now was helping Hilton’s three children and niece “begin to heal from what they experienced.”

“An important part of that process is allowing them to safely return home and begin rebuilding a sense of security and normalcy,” the statement continued. “For the children’s safety, privacy, and well-being, we respectfully ask members of the media, paparazzi, content creators, and the public to leave the area surrounding the family’s home and not return. Please allow his children the privacy and space they need during this unimaginably difficult time.”

Hilton’s family also shared that, although very little information on Perez’s condition has been provided to them, they had been able to confirm that he “is able to communicate,” which they say has given them hope during “this heartbreaking time.”

Earlier Thursday, conservative political commentator Sean Hannity released an episode featuring Hilton that was recorded in recent weeks. During the “Hang Out” podcast episode, Hilton expressed regret over disparaging attacks he made on the celebrities he covered over the course of his career.

“I have a lot of regrets,” he told Hannity. “Attention is like a drug, and I was definitely an attention addict back then. I mean, I still am, but I think now I do a better job of keeping it in check. And when you’re an addict, you don’t care if you’re hurting people.”

The “OG influencer” said that he attempted to make amends with some of the celebrities he targeted, including Britney Spears and Khloé Kardashian, whom he said were receptive to his apologies. He also privately approached Neil Patrick Harris to apologize for aggressively trying to out him as a gay man in 2006, before the actor had spoken about his sexuality publicly. Harris also accepted the mea culpa.

Hilton said that he had changed his ways. “I realized what I was doing was wrong — that I could still be fun — but I don’t have to be so cheap, and I don’t have to be so cruel. It was cruel, and it’s something that I carry with me.

“It’s like my scarlet letter, and it’s very heavy baggage.”

In March, Hilton was hospitalized for severe sepsis for 21 days. During the ordeal, he said that God presented himself to him. Perez claimed that he’d changed dramatically since the health scare. In recent months, he’s posted about the Bible, launched a religious merch line and spoken about his religious awakening on the podcast circuit.

Second-quarter revenue jumped 93 percent but Palantir’s ties to Israel and role in military technology are controversial.

United States artificial intelligence and data analytics giant Palantir Technologies has reported “otherworldly” quarterly results, sending its shares more than 14 percent higher in after-hours trading, as its growth shows no signs of slowing despite mounting criticism over its close ties to the US and Israeli governments and concerns about its growing role in artificial intelligence and warfare.

Palantir Technologies reported a revenue of $1.94bn for the second quarter, up 93 percent from a year earlier, and raised its forecast annual revenue to between $8.15bn and $8.158bn, up from $7.65bn to $7.662bn earlier. It said strong demand from both commercial customers and government agencies drove the surge.

“This quarter was otherworldly: our US commercial revenue grew 149 percent year-over-year, our overall revenue grew 93 percent year-over-year,” Chief Executive Alex Karp said. “Demand for AI sovereignty has now been unleashed.”

In a letter to shareholders, Karp wrote: “Our business is compounding at a rate and scale that we have never before witnessed.”

Palantir holds multibillion-dollar contracts with US government agencies, including the US Army. Revenue from its US government business rose 90 percent year on year to $809m, even as the company has faced growing opposition over its role in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which critics say has resulted in unlawful deportations and killings.

Founded in 2003 by technology entrepreneurs including Karp and multi-billionaire Peter Thiel, Palantir opened its first office in Israel in 2015 and has since expanded its work with the Israeli military.

Following what Palantir described as a “strategic partnership” with Israel in January 2024, the company significantly expanded its operations supporting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and operations in the occupied West Bank.

According to Open Intel, a platform tracking corporate involvement in the genocidal war on Gaza, Palantir has actively recruited former members of Israel’s elite Unit 8200 cyberintelligence division. The group says Palantir’s software integrates intercepted communications, satellite imagery and other datasets to help generate military targeting lists for Israeli forces.

In a statement to Al Jazeera earlier this year, Palantir UK reiterated the company’s support for Israel.

The company has also secured major contracts with the United Kingdom’s government. In January, the UK’s Ministry of Defence awarded Palantir a $323m (240-million-pound) contract. A separate $444m (330-million-pound) NHS contract awarded in November 2023 has also attracted criticism, with campaigners raising concerns about the handling of sensitive health data and the heavy redaction of contract documents.

Palantir has also faced scrutiny over its vision for the future of artificial intelligence. In The Technological Republic, a recent book co-authored by Karp and the company’s head of corporate affairs, Nicholas W Zamiska, the authors argue that technology companies have a responsibility to build advanced military AI capabilities. Critics have described the philosophy as a form of “techno-fascism”.

Al Jazeera has contacted Palantir for comment.

A new study by Australia’s internet regulator has revealed that more than eight in 10 young Australian teens and preteens are continuing to use social media platforms despite the government’s prohibition for children under 16.

The ban came into effect in December last year.

Here is what we know about how it’s going.

What did the latest report find?

Australia’s internet regulator, eSafety, said it had found that more than eight in 10 Australian under-16s are continuing to use social media despite being banned from doing so.

The report also found that most of those children aged 10 to 15 were using social media just as frequently in March as they had been before the ban came into force on December 10 last year.

“Most under-16s who had social media accounts before commencement were able to either retain them or create new ones at the three-month ⁠mark, with social media platforms’ failure to implement effective age assurance measures cited as the main reason,” eSafety said in a statement.

About half the children who retained their accounts said platforms had not checked their age, the most common reason they were able to stay on the services. Others said that their accounts listed them as aged 16 or older or ‌that age-checking ⁠systems had incorrectly determined they were older.

Prior to the ban, nearly 86 percent of children surveyed reported using at least one age-restricted platform. Three months later, that figure remained above 81 percent, the eSafety report said.

Around 58 percent of teenagers reported using social media daily, the report found. Before the ban, the number was roughly 60 percent.

The report showed minimal change in “sports and physical activity, arts and music, spending time with friends and family, and attendance at community events”.

At the time the new rule was introduced, experts warned that enforcing it would be extremely difficult.

Joanna Orlando, a researcher in digital wellbeing and the author of Generation Connected: How to Parent in a Digital World, told Al Jazeera in December last year: “Tech-savvy teens simply use VPNs, fake birth photos for face scans, or migrate to less regulated platforms like Lemon8, or to platforms not part of the ban like video games. Enforcement is proving to be difficult in the days leading up to the ban.”

In December 2025, Australia prohibited children under 16 from using social media platforms, becoming the world’s first country to do so. Video game platforms are not included in the ban.

The government said this was prompted by increasing concerns about the effects of cyberbullying, sexual exploitation and self-harm content on the mental and physical health of children and young people.

Research commissioned by the Australian government in 2023 found four out of five children aged eight to 16 use social media, often beginning between the ages of 10 and 12. That report was led by former National Australia Bank CEO Andrew Thorburn, who recommended age restrictions.

Under the law, 10 of the biggest social media platforms face $33m in fines if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to block Australian-based users younger than 16. Such steps include using age-verification tools to determine how old users are.

As of January 16, social media companies had revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children in Australia, according to officials.

“We stared down everybody who said it couldn’t be done, some of the most powerful and rich companies in the world and their supporters,” Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells told reporters in January.

However, several months later, it now appears that youngsters have been able to open new accounts with relative ease.

Days after Australia’s ban took effect, Reddit, one of the 10 platforms required to block minors, lodged a challenge to the ban in the High Court, while still complying with it. The case is still ongoing.

How has the Australian government responded to the latest findings?

On Saturday, Andrew Leigh, Australia’s assistant minister for productivity, competition, charities and treasury, defended the new law, arguing that the social media ban has already reshaped the “national debate” about the use of social media by children.

The ban has been “an important game changer in the conversation among parents”, Leigh said in televised remarks.

“We’ve had millions of accounts shut down,” he said.

“We never expected that this would have 100 percent compliance. We don’t get 100 percent compliance out of minimum drinking age laws, but it’s still appropriate that we have that law on the books.”

While social media has long provided easy access to unregulated and often harmful content, misinformation and hate speech, the recent explosion of AI‑generated material poses new risks to the wellbeing of children and young people, experts say.

The American Psychological Association published an advisory last year warning that generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems can amplify harmful content such as violent or sexual videos.

It also added that adolescents are less likely than adults to question the accuracy of AI-generated content. “They may also be unaware of the persuasive intent underlying an AI system’s advice or bias,” the advisory stated.

AI can also amplify pre-existing societal prejudices, according to Ayo Tometi, co-creator of the US-based antiracist movement Black Lives Matter.

Children worldwide are also worried about the misuse of AI for online child sexual exploitation and “deepfakes”, according to research by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on children’s perspectives and AI, which it published in October 2025.

Following the introduction of Australia’s landmark law, some other countries are contemplating similar bans.

In the United Kingdom, the government has announced that it also plans to introduce a ban on social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram from spring 2027 onward. 

Messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Signal, educational tools, and e-commerce and music streaming will be excluded.

The government will announce the new regulations by the end of this year.

In November 2025, Denmark’s government said it also plans to prohibit social media platforms for children under 15, saying it had secured majority support in parliament. The ban is due to come into effect later this year.

Around the same time, Malaysia said it would ban social media accounts for people under 16 from this year.

In April, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis formally announced plans to prohibit social media access for children under 15 from January 1, 2027, subject to parliamentary approval.

OpenAI has revealed that one of its artificial intelligence models independently stole login credentials and hacked into another technology company’s system, in what is widely seen as one of the first known incidents of AI systems acting autonomously.

“We had a significant security incident during evaluation of our models,” CEO Sam Altman posted on X on Tuesday.

The incident comes as calls mount from technology rights advocates for stricter guardrails on rapidly evolving AI systems.

They have grown so powerful in a short span of time that alarming phenomena such as deepfakes and sophisticated cyberscams are becoming the norm.

Earlier this year, a number of software engineers quit their jobs at top companies such as Anthropic and AI in protest against how the technologies are being built.

“AI is accelerating the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities,” OpenAI said in a lengthy statement on Tuesday that detailed the latest incident.

“The primary lesson from this incident is that model security and safety must keep pace with rapidly advancing capabilities.”

Here’s what we know about the breach:

What has happened?

OpenAI said two of its models found their way out of an isolated, no-internet access environment – or a sandbox – and hacked into the systems of tech company Hugging Face on their own.

The models involved are the latest GPT-5.6 Sol model and an unreleased model the company said is “even more capable,” than its latest version.

Hugging Face hosts openly sourced AI models and resources. The two OpenAI agents discovered vulnerabilities in Hugging Face’s servers and proceeded to steal login details and then hack into the company’s systems.

The incident occurred during an OpenAI internal testing session designed to assess the models’ cybersecurity capabilities. OpenAI had removed standard safety measures for the test.

Both sought to cheat their way through a problem during the test, OpenAI said. They went to “extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal” and “found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation”.

OpenAI’s security team detected the unusual activity internally, but details of the breach came to light following a joint investigation by both companies.

What has Hugging Face said?

Hugging Face disclosed last Thursday that its servers were hacked by an unknown but sophisticated agent acting on its own. The company discovered the breach through its own AI-assisted detection.

“This one was different from anything we had handled before in one important way: it was driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system,” the company said.

Following OpenAI’s disclosure that its models were involved in the breach, both sides conducted an ongoing joint investigation this week.

“We suspected last week’s cyberattack might have come from a frontier lab, given the sophistication of the agent. Turns out it did!” CEO Clement Delangue posted on X on Tuesday.

Hugging Face’s staff “strongly believe there was no malicious intent on their part,” Delangue added, referring to OpenAI.

Why does this matter?

Cybersecurity experts have previously sounded the alarm over the potential, extreme capabilities of AI systems and the dangers they pose.

But until now, there have been few real-life cases proving those concerns like this one.

Many warn that incidents like these could become commonplace and that AI systems pose a threat to financial, security and other sensitive data systems.

OpenAI revealed in a separate incident earlier this week that the unreleased, more powerful model had escaped an isolated environment during another test.

Anthropic, OpenAI’s rival, had similar issues with its most powerful agent to date, the Claude Mythos Preview model.

During a stress test of an early version, the model found its way out of a sandbox, gained internet access and emailed the supervising researcher that it had escaped and then wiped evidence of its activity. Anthropic halted a planned public release of the model afterwards.

In April, the US Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department convened a meeting with bank CEOs where officials warned about the cybersecurity risks posed by Mythos. Canada’s federal banking regulator has also warned financial institutions about the model’s capabilities.

The OpenAI breach also appears to make the case for companies like Hugging Face, which rely on open source systems, as opposed to more secretive AI development platforms like OpenAI.

“This incident, possibly the first of its kind, proves a point we’ve long believed: AI safety won’t be solved by any single company working in secret,” Hugging Face’s Delangue was quoted as saying in OpenAI’s statement.

“It will be solved in the open, collaboratively, with broad access to AI for every defender, everywhere,” he added.

Meta has rolled back its ‘Muse Image’ AI feature after widespread backlash over privacy and consent. The tool allowed users to generate AI images of people by simply ‘@ mentioning’ public Instagram accounts. The negative reaction was swift and global – forcing Meta to say it ‘missed the mark’.

London, United Kingdom – Should Andy Burnham enter Downing Street as early as July 17, if he is confirmed unopposed as Labour leader, one of his most consequential early decisions will have nothing to do with defence spending, immigration, or the economy.

It will concern a seven-year 330-million-pound ($440m) contract between NHS England and Palantir Technologies, a leading defence and intelligence software firm in the United States that received no contracts from Burnham’s Greater Manchester administration during his nine years as mayor.

The ramifications of such a decision could extend well beyond the NHS.

Media reports surfaced last week that Burnham is minded to hold that line with Palantir across all of the UK government when he arrives in Downing Street.

When approached by Al Jazeera, an Andy Burnham spokesperson said: “We’re not going to comment on individual government procurement contracts or companies and there are legal processes that must be followed.

“However, in general, Andy’s guiding principles on procurement are that we need to be getting value for money for the taxpayer and that we need to be safeguarding people’s data and British interests.”

For a company that has spent six years embedding itself across several public sector entities – the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, the Financial Conduct Authority – that posture is a real shift from the outgoing Labour administration led by Keir Starmer.

Starmer’s government actively courted US-based AI companies championed by the former UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson.

According to the Financial Times, which cited people briefed on the discussions, Burnham’s advisers, including former tech minister Josh Simons, are working with researchers Antonio Weiss and Martha Dacombe on a new AI strategy prioritising British companies and workers.

The story of how we got here runs through Manchester.

The Manchester precedent

Burnham served as Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 until June, when he returned to Westminster via the Makerfield by-election.

Under his leadership, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority issued no contracts to Palantir. Greater Manchester Police has separately confirmed it did not have a Palantir contract in the past five years.

The more instructive precedent, though, is in the NHS – an institution Burnham has no direct mayoral authority over, but shaped politically through Greater Manchester’s landmark health devolution settlement.

Rather than adopt the NHS England-mandated Federated Data Platform, built on Palantir’s Foundry software, Greater Manchester’s NHS leaders spent six years building their own analytics infrastructure instead. That became a proof of concept, which allies now cite nationally: effective NHS data management, they argue, does not require Palantir.

In May, Al Jazeera spoke to the Good Law Project about its concerns that Palantir was a “potential security risk”.

Some campaigners have interpreted recent political signalling from Burnham’s camp as supportive of their position, although a Good Law Project spokesperson said it has had no direct contact with him or his team.

The political context

In his first major speech since returning to Westminster as an MP, Burnham said he wanted social value to weigh more heavily in government procurement decisions. The reasoning, according to those close to him, is as much political as ethical.

Reports have described concern within his camp that “unfettered tech boosterism” risks alienating voters already uneasy about how much of the state now runs on American software.

Underneath that concern sits a more specific worry: that a company built to serve defence and intelligence clients does not necessarily share the values of an institution built to treat patients.

“A defence company has inherently different values than a healthcare organisation like the NHS,” said Duncan McCann, Technology and Data Lead at the Good Law Project, which has led legal action seeking greater transparency over the contract. “That’s where I think this concern was created.”

Palantir is not unique in this respect. Its origins in US defence and intelligence contracting are shared, to varying degrees, by most of the US AI firms now supplying British government departments – a lineage that, for critics like McCann, taints the whole category rather than one company alone.

What’s next?

The NHS contract is the most visible, but it is unlikely to be the only one making headlines this year.

A parallel battle is already under way in London, where Palantir has launched a High Court challenge after Mayor Sadiq Khan blocked a 50-million pound ($67m) Metropolitan Police contract, arguing the decision amounts to stifling free speech.

Khan’s office has since approved a smaller arrangement – a partial reversal that has done little to settle the underlying tension.

For campaigners who have spent years pushing for greater scrutiny of Palantir’s role in British public life, Burnham’s ascent could be the moment the tide finally turns. The NHS break clause falls in March 2027, but a decision needs to be made by December.

Burnham is expected in Downing Street later this month. He will soon decide whether Palantir has a future in Britain’s health service – and, by extension, in the rest of the UK’s public sector.

Al Jazeera reached out to Palantir for comment but had not received a response at the time of publishing.

The app said it will be rolling out usernames gradually, in a move meant to improve privacy.

Change is coming for some three billion users of the world’s favourite messaging platform, WhatsApp.

The social media app owned by Meta will allow users to be identified by usernames instead of phone numbers, it said on Monday. WhatsApp is used in more than 180 countries and 60 languages, the platform says.

Users will soon be able to reserve unique handles, with a wider rollout planned for later this year.

The move is designed to improve privacy on the platform amid longstanding scrutiny over its data protection practices.

So what is changing, and how can you grab a handle no one else has?

What change has WhatsApp announced?

Users will soon be able to swap the phone numbers displayed on WhatsApp with usernames, the company said. Under the new system, which will commence later this year, users will be able to choose to be “findable” and contacted by their handles only.

The app said it has already begun allowing some users to reserve unique usernames before a bigger rollout later this year.

Why is WhatsApp making this change?

The messaging platform said the change is designed to improve privacy features, for which it and its parent company Meta have come under scrutiny in the past.

“We have designed this as a core privacy feature,” Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp’s vice president of product, told reporters.

According to the company, there will be no public directory of usernames and no autocomplete suggestions, meaning users will need to know someone’s exact username to reach them for the first time.

“When someone new walks into your life – a classmate, a neighbour, someone you meet at an event – sharing a phone number can feel like a big step,” a WhatsApp company blog post stated.

“That’s because a phone number is personal and it’s tied to so many parts of your life. Sometimes you just want to chat without handing over your digits.”

The company told one user on X that it has added multiple new features to help users defend themselves from scammers.

Optional username keys – or short numbered codes – can be added, which would mean people can only contact a user if they have both their username and its key, for example.

WhatsApp also said it will limit the number of new people any one account can contact as a guard against spam accounts, and that its systems can now detect and block “abuse patterns”.

How will the new usernames work?

Companies, organisations and creators with existing accounts on Meta’s other social media platforms – Instagram and Facebook – will have the opportunity to claim their usernames as handles on WhatsApp as well.

Usernames will have to be three to 35 characters. To prevent impersonation, WhatsApp will hold back usernames for high-profile people or groups, such as celebrities, public figures and government entities.

To reserve a specific username, WhatsApp said a user must download the latest version of WhatsApp, go to the Settings tab, the Account tab, and then the Username tab.

The reservation must be done with a smartphone – it cannot be done on WhatsApp Web or Desktop.

When will this change come into effect?

WhatsApp said it will roll out usernames gradually over the coming months and will notify users on WhatsApp when the new feature is available in their country. It has not given specific timelines.

To be prepared, the company told users to “make sure you have the latest version of WhatsApp downloaded and keep an eye on your app”.

What are WhatsApp’s current privacy features?

WhatsApp’s current privacy settings are limited to blocking individual users and silencing unknown callers.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on whether police may obtain cellphone data to find crime suspects.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices said this location data showing where a cellphone user has traveled is personal and private and subject to the protection of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.

Justice Elena Kagan said these “records serve as a personal journal of a user’s movements.”

She said the data “resembles other private materials—think of emails, documents, photographs, or calendars—that even if stored on Google’s servers, a user reasonably views as his own…and reasonably expects to be shielded from the inquisitive eyes of the government.”

Because an “individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cellphone location data,” she said police investigators need a valid search warrant from a magistrate.

The court stopped short of deciding the proper basis for a search warrant in such cases. Instead, the justices sent the case back to judges in Virginia.

But the outcome casts doubt on “geofence warrants.”

In recent years, police have gone to Google and cellphone companies seeking tracking data on cellphones that were at a crime scene. Some times, they have had a warrant from a magistrate.

Civil libertarians say the use of this tracking data raises the specter of mass surveillance on innocent people.

Police and government lawyers say no one has a reasonable right to privacy when they are walking on a sidewalk or driving down the street.

The case before the court arose from the armed robbery conviction of a Virginia man who stole $195,000 from a credit union in a small town near Richmond.

By the time police arrived, the robber had fled. But surveillance cameras showed he was carrying a gun and a cellphone.

Lacking other leads, detective Joshua Hilton asked a judge to issue a special type of warrant seeking information from Google.
Referred to as a “geofence warrant,” it seeks data from phones in a particular area at a particular time.

The detective sought data on phones that were within 150 yards of the credit union within one hour of the late afternoon robbery.

After examining and paring down the data, the detective asked for the phone records of Okello Chatrie. Then, with a search warrant of his home, investigators found two robbery-style demand notes, a semi-automatic pistol and about $100,000 in cash.

A judge refused to suppress the evidence from an allegedly unconstitutional “search”, and Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea.
The full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals split evenly on the legality of the geofence warrant, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the issue in Chatrie vs. U.S.

Usually investigators obtain warrants to search the home or vehicle of a known crime suspect.

The new and disputed geofence warrrants seek to find a suspect by examining data on the cellphones that were at the scene of a crime.

The FBI used this cellphone data in 2021 to identify suspects who broke through police barracks on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed their way into the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of electoral votes.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed on the outcome in Chatrie vs. U.S.

In a 21-page dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito said the court had “carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age. I cannot support this irresponsible escapade.”

Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed in a one-paragraph dissent. “Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google,” she said.

Meta has paused a new company-wide program of tracking its employees’ computer usage which has been plagued by internal frustration.

The program was started only two months ago as part of an effort by Meta to gather data on how people used computers, including mouse clicks and keystrokes, that could be used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models.

It was met immediately with upset from employees who were to have their every online action at work tracked and recorded, but also concerned about where the data was going and how it would be protected.

Meta halted the program on Monday after realising some of the collected data had been left potentially accessible to anyone inside the company.

A Meta spokesman confirmed to the BBC that the program, named internally the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), was “on pause for now” as the company investigates the issue.

“We have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees,” the spokesman added.

The pause follows weeks of blow-back from workers at the company, led by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, to being tracked at work.

In an initial response to worker frustration – which was displayed in part through a petition signed by nearly 2,000 Meta workers demanding that the MCI program be cancelled – Meta said it would allow workers to not be tracked for up to 30 minutes at a time.

“That was just an attempt at damage control,” one current employee told the BBC. The person asked not to be identified.

Another Meta employee, who also asked not to be identified, said that while a lot of technical workers inside the company are open to the idea of improving its AI models and being more competitive in a field dominated by Anthropic and OpenAI, the fact that tracking “was forced on us, there was no consent” left people angry.

“I’ve never seen morale here so bad,” the employee said.

In addition to the tracking program, frustration inside Meta has grown as it has done extensive layoffs, and reorganised many employees and their work around AI initiatives, on which the company is spending up to $145bn (£109bn) this year alone.

Employees have even openly insulted management, external in an internal meeting on the AI-driven changes, according to a report in Wired.

While Meta has long had a reputation in the technology industry as a company that frequently reorganises internal teams around new projects, the changes and spending in an effort to catch up on AI feels like “chasing your tail”, a person who recently left Meta after several years said.

“The direction this company is going in is depressing”, the former employee said. “Exhausting and depressing.”

A visitor has filed a $5-million lawsuit against Disneyland for allegedly failing to properly disclose the use of facial-recognition technology at park and collecting sensitive data on guests.

Summer Christine Duffield of Riverside County filed the lawsuit after a May 10 visit to Disneyland and sister park California Adventure, alleging that the resort violates privacy and consumer protection laws collecting biometric data of visitors, without adequate consent.

“Disney does not adequately disclose the use of their biometric collection, so consumers — which almost always include children — have no idea that Disney is collecting this highly sensitive data,” the plaintiff noted in the lawsuit. “Guests should be able to expressly opt in to this type of sensitive facial recognition technology with written consent — the onus of privacy rights should not be on the victim.”

The suit was filed on May 15 in U.S. District Court in New York. The lawsuit cites an article from The Times on consumer reaction to Disney’s use of facial recognition.

The Walt Disney Company didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“People are getting fed up with being force-fed new tech, new AI, new tracking tools,” said Ari Waldman, Professor of Law at the UC Irvine.

Walt Disney Co. rolled out its facial recognition technology in late April across Disneyland Resort to verify tickets. The way it works is guests’ faces are scanned, converted into a numerical identifier and matched with ticket data.

Disney’s privacy policy notes that the identifiers created for identification are deleted within 30 days unless they need to be kept for legal or fraud prevention purposes.

Guests who don’t want to use the technology can enter through a separate entrance marked with a silhouette of a head and shoulders with a slash through it. However, of the dozens of lines to enter Disneyland and California Adventure, there were only four that didn’t use facial recognition, during an April visit.

The sign saying “Use of this technology is optional,” adorn the security checkpoint entrances.

“This technology facilitates ease of reentry into our parks and helps prevent fraud,” the company noted in its website.

Use of facial recognition technology for crowd management and ticketing has become increasingly commonplace.

Dodger Stadium deploys facial recognition for guests using the “Go Ahead Entry” at certain gates without producing a physical or digital ticket to enter the stadium. At Intuit Dome in Inglewood, visitors can use “GameFaceID” to quickly move through a separate lane with their face as their ID.

The lawsuit comes at a time when there is increasing concern of surveillance in public places, and privacy advocates have rallied against the normalization of surveillance. More recently, concerns of the potentially abusive use of artificial intelligence by government to analyze large quantities of data — from texts to facial scans — to surveil U.S citizens resulted in a high-profile showdown between the Pentagon and Anthropic.