EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
1–10 of 538 posts
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#2I think the bigger issue should be how the University came to choose something like Proctorio. This has been the case with many colleges around the world; disconnected or ignorant authorities keep signing up to whatever the SaaS salesman pitches to them, without vetting the company's background and records, and not listening to the affected parties in their arrogance.
My own college struggled with online exams, and turned a deaf ear to students and even professors objecting against the platform being used (it's the most popular proctored exam platform). In the end, due to their own incompetence at handling exams, there turned out to be large-scale cheating and the college then forced the entire batch to give the exams again in the next term.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#3Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#4His GoFundMe if you want to contribute: https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-against-proctorio
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#5In case you don't know who Proctorio is:
(like me)
Apparently it's a supervision software that students are forced to install on their private computer and (as expected) it'll do its worst to invade your privacy and flag "suspicious" things, based on which the university might punish you.
"Suspicious" here means wearing glasses [3] or looking around in the room or blinking too much [4] or having eye and/or skin colors [1] that are difficult for AI to track or reading questions out aloud [2]. Because everyone knows that a good student is white, sits in a bright room, and will continuously stare at his/her PC screen while thinking about a difficult math problem, I guess. WTF?
I am so glad that this kind of abuse was not yet common when I was in university. I love sitting in the (dark) basement, it helps me concentrate. And I tend to close my eyes a lot because it helps me visualize the problem. I'm sure this kind of misguided software would have failed me.
And the worst part is: Bugs in this software will fail students in the real world. [4]
So it is crucially important that this type of software receives a lot of scrutiny to make sure it works as planned. But it seems that Proctorio is suing this guy for doing exactly that: Documenting how the software is supposed to work by linking to Proctorio's YouTube videos.
[1] https://twitter.com/uhreeb/status/1303139738065481728
[2] https://www.insider.com/viral-tiktok-student-fails-exam-afte...
[3] https://proctorio.com/frequently-asked-questions
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/g2ub05/god_kicked_out_...
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#6I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern.
> In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming were of great concern to Linkletter, who was worried about students being penalized academically on the basis of Proctorio’s analysis.
In an in-person invigilated test environment, the invigilator/proctor is watching students carefully for suspicious movements and behaviours. We don't call that an invasion of privacy. While I don't like commercial proctoring software (I have to use some, not Proctorio, for students who can't enter the country because of Covid-19), being videoed by a machine while you do a test is a) not much different from everyone else in the class who's being watched in person (you probably get watched less, actually), b) a way to make sure essential academic standards are upheld. No one is going to get penalised based on some fallible "AI" system; "suspicious" events get reviewed by a person and usually aren't suspicious at all.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#7I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…
But i think it's OK to install the software just on a laptop you'd use to take tests, some old laptop, and keep yourself free of surveillance otherwise right? If so, i can't see how is it a problem: someone absolutely has to be watched while taking a test. But if it's during whole education process, then yeah, it's ridiculous and worth fighting against.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#8I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…
It's their personal computer though.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#9I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…
People can have different expectation of privacy at home versus in classroom/testing facility.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#10I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…
But i think it's OK to install the software just on a laptop you'd use to take tests, some old laptop, and keep yourself free of surveillance otherwise right? If so, i can't see how is it a problem: someone absolutely has to be watched while taking a test. But if it's during whole education process, then yeah, it's ridiculous and worth fighting against.
For some people "some old laptop" is all they actually have. I don't imagine a lot of students have both a desktop, a laptop, and "some old laptop" that they can use, so the software will get installed on the single computer they use (or share) to get their studies done on.