"Workers sue $10 billion AI startup for collecting and exposing personal data,"

Training artificial-intelligence models demands massive amounts of fresh data. Mercor, a $10 billion startup that hires contractors to provide AI training feedback, is among those leading the highstakes hunt.

Sometimes that quest for data leads to contentious territory.

The San Francisco startup, whose clients have included OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, has been hit with at least seven class-action lawsuits in recent weeks following a third-party data breach. Allegedly, it exposed Mercor contractor information ranging fromrecorded job interviews to facial biometric data and screenshots ofworkers’ computers...

A class-action suit filed Tuesday in Northern California alleged that Mercor accumulated applicant-vetting data, including background checks, which it shared with partners, in breach of federal regulations.

According to plaintiffs, the company’s practices include monitoringits contractors’ computers and sharing that data with clients, using recorded candidate interviews to train AI models, and training client models on materials potentially owned by other companies.

“We strongly dispute the speculative claims in these lawsuits andlook forward to presenting the facts at the appropriate time and place,” Mercor said in a statement...

Meta has paused its work with Mercor and is investigating theincident, according to a company spokesman. (Meta’s Mercor pause was earlier reported by Wired.) Anthropic declined to comment.OpenAI didn’t respond to requests for comment...