John,

Eproctoring is bad news, and schools need to stop using it. At BanEProctoring.com, you can see which colleges and universities are using eproctoring, and you can test to see if the facial analysis software used by a pervasive, racist³ eproctoring app can detect your face. Check it out and take action!

Visit BanEProctoring.comEproctoring software is spyware that tens of thousands students are required to install in order to complete their education. It’s invasive, dangerous¹, and fails² to prevent academic dishonesty. These apps demonstrate systemic bias against non-white students³, are harmful for students with testing anxiety⁴, and discriminate⁵ against students with disabilities. They also treat students as if they are guilty until proven innocent, which is a disrespectful and harmful stance for any academic institution to take.

Students are standing up and fighting back, with petitions across the country collecting thousands of signatures⁶. And in some places, including San Francisco State University⁷, administrators caved under student pressure and enacted policies to ban eproctoring.

Public outcry and the easing of pandemic restrictions has eproctoring on the ropes; this summer is the perfect time to up the pressure on universities to not renew their contracts for this invasive and ineffective software. We can’t let eproctoring’s abuse of students during the pandemic become the new normal. Whether you’re a student, parent, educator, or just a concerned community member, we’ve made it easy to take a moment to write to the universities that are clinging to this harmful software. Take action now.

Students should never be forced to hand over private data, including face and voice prints, just to complete their courses.

For student privacy,

Erica & the Team at ❤️Fight

1. New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/online-testing-cheating-universities-coronavirus.html

2. Vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3an98j/students-are-easily-cheating-state-of-the-art-test-proctoring-tech

3. Vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5gxg3/proctorio-is-using-racist-algorithms-to-detect-faces

4. ERIC: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1227595.pdf

5. Center for Democracy & Technology: https://cdt.org/insights/how-automated-test-proctoring-software-discriminates-against-disabled-students/

6. Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/students-are-pushing-back-against-proctoring-surveillance-apps

7. San Francisco State University: https://senate.sfsu.edu/resolution/resolution-third-party-proctoring

Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.