KAO: Proctortrack breach was predictable, but why is surveillance tech even used?
Column: Left on Red
Last semester, I wrote a column denouncing the use of Proctortrack for assessments at Rutgers. Now, as we were all notified by mass email a few weeks ago, Proctortrack has been the victim of a security breach, exposing Rutgers students to every imaginable violation of privacy.
Given the amount of personal data that Proctortrack demands from its users, such as biometric data and videos and images recording every conceivable action made by a person’s face and body, the security breach is unacceptable. This is something that anyone with an ounce of foresight could have predicted, and yet it happened anyway.
As I wrote in my column, Proctortrack came to the University under hardly transparent circumstances. To quote myself, “For the first seven months of Proctortrack's use, there was no contract in place between Rutgers and Verificient Technologies, the company behind the software. At the time, students pushed back against Proctortrack, and the backlash even received coverage in The New York Times.”
This history demonstrates an utter lack of accountability from the University with regards to its business dealings with an important technology vendor.
To no one’s surprise, the University does not appear to be too worried about these surveillance technologies. In a mass email sent to all Rutgers campuses, the Office of Information Technology expressed boilerplate sympathy.
“We understand the concerns of students related to privacy and security with remote proctoring,” the email reads. “At the same time, we recognize the need for faculty to have reliable solutions for assessments conducted remotely. With this in mind, we are working with academic leadership at the university to review guidelines and processes surrounding the use of remote proctoring.”
The entire debacle with Proctortrack is indicative of the broader problems Rutgers faces. Shady contracting deals and administrative breakdowns seem to be par for the course in the great state of New Jersey, and its public university system is no exception. I shudder to think of the amount of money that the University surely must have shoveled at Verificient (the company that owns Proctortrack).
Despite spending vast sums on things like athletics, administrative salaries and bad software, the University never seems to have the money, for example, to pay essential workers the wages they deserve.
In the same email mentioned above, the Office of Information Technology wrote, “The situation with Proctortrack is untenable, and Rutgers is now working diligently to find alternative options for remote proctoring. As we do so, we are implementing a vetting process that is speedy, thorough and attentive to the issues raised by the use of Proctortrack.”
Forgive me if I am not reassured that this “vetting process” will yield better results than that of Proctortrack. The lack of transparency involving the initial licensing of Proctortrack does not bode well for any future dealings with vendors. But we are asking ourselves the wrong question here. Instead of seeking another type of surveillance technology, why should this technology even be used at all?
In lieu of Proctortrack, the University has announced that alternative proctoring technologies will still be employed. This is a horrible idea. Even if a proctoring technology that was completely secure was available for the use of the University, the technology is an insult to the student body. Invasive proctoring technologies presume guilt without evidence and represent an unconscionable intrusion into the personal lives of Rutgers students.
There is no need to record both video and audio of students as if they were criminals. This fall semester has been extremely difficult for everyone, and adding an additional component of stress is pedagogical malpractice.
At the risk of repeating myself from this past April, here are my suggestions. Instead of imposing high-stakes assessments that occur under panoptic conditions, instructors ought to design take home-style assessments that achieve learning goals without unnecessary surveillance.
I am sympathetic to the many demands made on the time of instructors, who, no less than the students, must also endure a tough semester. But, it would seem that the deployment of surveillance technologies like Proctortrack only results in more adverse learning conditions.
Earlier in the fall, a video of a student who cried after being wrongly flagged for cheating by proctoring software during an exam went viral on social media, and the incident was a poignant reminder of the human costs of this technology.
Remote learning will likely be a semi-permanent part of life for United States universities in the foreseeable future. It is pointless to demand students to submit themselves to the humiliation of invasive surveillance. A little empathy would go a long way during this time.
Samuel Kao is a School of Arts and Sciences junior majoring in history. His column, "Left on Red," runs on alternate Mondays.
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