r/privacy • u/terenscendent • 1d ago
news Companies Are Selling Employees' Private Slack Messages and Emails to Train AI—Often Without Workers' Knowledge
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/companies-sell-workplace-data-ai-firms-1826648103
u/Plastic-Mushroom-571 1d ago
Private Slack messages is an oxymoron, no communication using company software (or hardware for that matter) is private.
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u/Mz_Incognito 1d ago
I don’t get why everyone in the comments is okay with this?
I don’t give a damn if IT can read everything because it’s company property, I don’t think companies should be able to sell what I wrote to a data company.
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u/slipperyMonkey07 1d ago
I don't think people are necessarily fine with it, it is more just the claim that the messages are private. Way to many people talk about and use company systems for very personal and identifiable things that they should not.
Companies should 100% tell employees they are doing this, and really not do it at all. Which if a company is doing this I already question their competence, I guess it depends on what their company does, but it seems strange that companies are happily giving away potential secrets and information about their company to a system like this.
I can understand if they are building their own llm based on their data and is in house only. But these seems like they got conned and took a probably severely low payout (and would expect them to not be in business much longer after).
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u/genio_desconhecido 9h ago
Upon hiring you are signing a couple of documents, with a personal data agreement among those. By that agreement, any data that was created by employee using company infrastructure/tools/whatever belongs to the company. If the company is selling data without this agreement signed and sealed, you are welcome to file a lawsuit. Otherwise, it's just a common practice.
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u/Mz_Incognito 6h ago
I know, I have a problem with it regardless. It is what it is and I don’t like it ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
I do think at the very least that selling our works to genAI companies should require additional agreements. IT monitoring what I do or the company taking credit for a report I wrote are one thing, but a company selling my work to help a technology impersonate humans and put us out of jobs is another, in my opinion.
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u/dragonnfr 1d ago
Simply do not put anything in Slack or email you wouldn't want read aloud in court or sold to the highest bidder. I treat every message I type on company systems as company property. Problem solved.
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u/clyypzz 1d ago
That's close to the nothing-to-hide argument .. not that your approach is wrong, but the part of letting them get away with this as if it's a normal thing to do.
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u/robot_ankles 1d ago
Most employers tell you this outright and you sign acknowledgements that everything you do on company equipment is their property.
They're not really getting away with anything.
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u/ErebosGR 1d ago
They're not really getting away with anything.
They are because they made it legal.
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u/robot_ankles 1d ago
Not sure I understand what you mean. What was made legal?
I think(?) this is just contract law. You're free to enter into an agreement (or not) where the stuff you create is the company's property.
- Assemble a chair, it's the company's chair to sell.
- Model, texture and rig a 3D video game character, the company owns the asset.
- Write some software code, it's the company's code.
- Send an email on company computers to a co-worker, the content is the intellectual property of the company.
Why would computer chat messages (in the context of work) be any different?
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u/ErebosGR 1d ago
Why would computer chat messages (in the context of work) be any different?
Because brainstorming ideas or sharing personal anecdotes (related to work tasks) should not be monetized wholesale by the company.
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u/Poppybiscuit 1d ago
Honestly that should be the rule for WORK anyways. Never say anything in a WORK context you wouldn’t want read out loud in front of everyone. There should be nothing personal or private said in work systems regardless.
That said i do think companies selling employee communication without consent or knowledge should be illegal, but i guess that’s just fantasy these days
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u/because__why 1d ago
people imagine slack is private? lol
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u/slipperyMonkey07 1d ago
Given the type of shit friends in IT see people use their company work computer for, and panic when they are asked to turn it in for updates / replacement, people really don't understand even after being told explicitly.
They just treat it as theirs and do everything on it, instead of having their own personal computer. I mainly feel bad for the kids of these people and their use of school laptops, no one is teaching them the amount of monitoring and stalking that is happening when they use those computers.
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u/because__why 1d ago
you're absolutely correct; have seen this a million times over. tremendously sad when they're under 40 acting like this; an all too common situation.
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u/Own-Swan2646 1d ago
Maybe it's time I had a malicious conversation with myself or others poison the wells
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u/Eazy12345678 1d ago
any product you get to use for free is cause you are the product.
u know those terms and conditions you never read?
always has and always will be that way
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u/AndyMcQuade 1d ago
This is dumb.
If it's content created during work hours on company systems, it's owned by the company. This is how it's always worked.
They don't need permission to sell it.
This is why you use work systems for work only and have your own devices for everything else.
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u/Forward_Problem_8982 1d ago
People are not allowed to have a conversation without it being used for the company? Yeah sounds dumb.
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u/AndyMcQuade 1d ago
Just because it's dumb doesn't mean it's not how it is.
Refusing to accept reality doesn't change it.
Want a private conversation that isn't recorded? Use your own devices.
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u/screemingegg 1d ago
Clickbait and completely false. There is no such thing as "private" messages when there is a company->employee relationship and said messages were created on the software and systems that the company owns.
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u/brainquantum 1d ago
well I am not even surprized anymore... Actually, several months ago I shared an article on Reddit, (which had been circulating for some times elsewhere), stating that the CEO of Reddit admitted that for years his company has been selling messages/conversations/posts from Reddit forums to AI companies to help training their AI models
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u/ErebosGR 1d ago
The admission was during an AMA, so he could be just blowing hot air to pump his stock.
More recently, Google and OpenAI signed deals with Reddit.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/16/openai-inks-deal-to-train-ai-on-reddit-data/
Since then, Reddit has been trying to block Anthropic's Claude and other LLMs.
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u/SwimmingThroughHoney 1d ago
Seems like too many comments here are focusing on the "Slack" part of the headline and missing the "emails" part. And even the article goes further to include "internal documents". This isn't just about messages on a 3rd-party app. It's about everything you do, and have, on a company device.
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u/xpxp2002 1d ago
I'm actually surprised this wasn't reported sooner. I've speculated for years that Microsoft trains their AI on Teams communications.
It doesn't surprise me that Slack messages are being used for AI training either.
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u/dupontping 1d ago
I’ve got bad news for you. Every company involved with AI is doing this.
Think your emails are safe? Pff
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u/flaming_bob 1d ago
This sounds less opportunistic and more desperate to make money. I wonder what income gap they're trying to fill.
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u/Lazy-Background-7598 1d ago
They aren’t the employees messages.
Companies doing this are extremely short-sighted, though
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u/TechPir8 1d ago
Anything you do while on the clock and being paid isn't yours, it is your employer's to do with what they want. They paid for it.
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u/Lazy-Background-7598 1d ago
Not always, but mostly. If you change an employee locker room, a company can’t film
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u/Z-Is-Last 1d ago edited 17h ago
I've never worked for a company that wanted their internal activities outside the company. I'm surprised any corporation would do anything that would allow their information to get out like that. All I can say is the people in the sea suite these days are just totally idiots.
Edit: C not sea, transcription issue
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u/GapAccomplished7897 1d ago
Nothing you have online is private. Understand that and you'll be fine.
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