We, the undersigned, vehemently oppose the use of Proctorio or any other software surveillance program to proctor assignments, quizzes, and/or exams for Herzing University. 

We object to having our tuition being used to fund, and us being forced to use, online proctoring software of any kind. We feel there is substantial evidence that online proctoring services are discriminatory, unsafe, and harmful to the students subjected to them.

Our argument

We’ll begin with an excerpt from the article Using 'AI-based software like Proctorio and ProctorU' to monitor online exams is a really bad idea, says Uni Panel - found on TheRegister.com(Claburn, 2021):

In an email to The Register, Linkletter – still awaiting a ruling on his effort to dismiss Proctorio's copyright complaint under Canada's anti-SLAPP statute, the Protection of Public Participation Act – said what stands out to him from the UT Austin report is the finding that Proctorio just isn't worth it.

"Every institution should be taking a hard look at whether Proctorio is worth the 'psychological cost' mentioned in the report, let alone the expense," he said.

"Over half of the 27 students accused had their academic integrity cases tossed. Thousands of students were surveilled, at great expense, for what? How much faculty and staff time was wasted? How much unnecessary heartbreak caused?”

"Students understand that surveillance is wrong. They know how the technology works. There is no technical explanation that will reduce the harm being done – it simply needs to stop.”

"The only way institutions can demonstrate they are listening to students is to stop using academic surveillance software."

***

The fact that surveillance software is so controversial isn’t a fluke. AI software is proven to be discriminatory and live proctors are guided by their own biases. This ensures that students being surveilled can never be on an equal footing. That fact alone should disqualify this software from ever being implemented by educators. Additionally, many students feel victimized in having to use the software. They feel vulnerable and exposed because it makes them vulnerable and exposed.

Googling “Petitions against [name of proctoring software]” yields pages and pages of results. We encourage you to check for yourself. There are over 200 schools with petitions, and growing. Two hundred is not a value that could be reached without significant and legitimate safety and civil rights concerns. Googling lawsuits associated with several online proctoring programs, or schools that mandate their use, will yield more than a modest return as well, with multiple litigations involving Respondus, ProctorU, Proctorio, Examity, and Honorlock to name a few. We, the signers of this petition, are making a great effort and are highly motivated to avoid anything beyond a petition, hence the very laborious, heavily researchedand time-extensive composing of this petition. We also wish to preserve academic integrity; our reputation is partially impacted by the type of professionals Herzing produces. But is it right that we be forced to forego basic human rights, and potentially our family’s safety?  

 

An article in USA Today details just how frighteningly invasive proctoring applications are (Chakradhar, 2021):

Proctoring software can collect data that includes but is not limited to: Social Security numbers; driver’s license numbers or passport numbers; biometric information like fingerprints, face-prints, voiceprints, iris or retina scans; IP addresses and device identifiers; browsing history, search history and logs of student interactions with applications or advertisements; medical conditions; physical and/or mental disability; photographs, video and audio recordings; education and employment information.

 

The breach of any or all of that information could be personally and financially devastating.  The concern alone that personaldata can be breached could be emotionally crippling. Proctoring software creates an entirely different, cruelly rigid and hostile testing environment. The number of variables that could negatively affect the test results is innumerable.  

 

When we chose this school, nothing was ever mentioned about our need to surrender our right to privacy in our own home. Those are terms many of us would never have accepted. It’s extremely unlikely that any of us were expecting to have to expose our private lives (i.e.) poverty, wealth, quirks, ticks, health conditions, poor housekeeping skills, unkempt children in pajamas during the day, hoarding, insect infestation, at home chemo treatments, etc. to an uninvited, very invasive, anonymous stranger whose presence is, by its very nature, hostile.

 

The inception of proctoring software is only 13 years old. The software provider that you’ve selected is only 8 years old. They have a long way to go before they can claim to be experts in a field that is barely in its infancy. There is quite literally no long-term research, and very minimal short-term research, on the impact online proctoring services has on students, negative effects on their psychological health, or the full scope of safety risks these invasive services create (Woldeab, D. & Brothen, T., 2019).

 

Some potential consequences

 

Studies demonstrate that when subjected to proctoring, more than twice as many students drop courses than those who aren’t proctored (Alessio et al., 2017). If the student intends tograduate they cannot drop courses at Herzing, because the programs have precise required classes. Rather than drop courses, students will simply drop Herzing. Researching new universities to attend is time consuming and exhausting, and transferring under conditions of duress could delay that person’s graduation at another institution by many months. The students in this petition chose Herzing for a reason. They don’t want to leave. If they feel forced to leave in order to protect themselves, their families, and put a stop to discrimination, it will be detrimental to both Herzing and the students leaving.

 

Data leaks are not uncommon and repairing the damage caused by data leaks can be expensive and taxing.  There is no way to seek restitutions without engaging in lengthy class action lawsuits, arbitrations, or otherwise. Over 440,000 students from Washington University are dealing with this right now, thanks to their online proctoring software (Kelley, 2020).

 

Recall that one of the pieces of data these companies can collect is the IP address of the user. From there, an average hacker can obtain a physical address in just minutes. Any number of things can happen after that. “Power does not necessarily corrupt. But what it always does is attract sociopaths. It attracts people who desire power to abuse.”  Google “Do people with power abuse it?”  Top hit:  Smithsonianmag.com, Christopher Shea, 10/2012.Inviting these strangers into our homes gives them the power to steal private, important data. We have very real concerns about this.

 

Students could be traumatized. Students with mental illness who suffer physical symptoms with anxiety such as vomiting, diarrhea, loud flatulence, etc., could be placed under duress to endure these private and unsightly bodily functions in front of said stranger, or risk failing a test due to a restroom emergency or ‘suspicious activity’. A University of Florida student felt forced to vomit at her desk when the proctor threatened to fail her if she left the screen (Harwell, 2020). She vomited at her desk in front of the stranger. The student was clearly intimidated. No one should have the power to deny someone the ability to attend to personal needs. That’s an abuse of the position and if the company supports that then the abuse goes all the way up. She (the test-taker) was terrorized plain and simple.  

 

Students may have problems strictly controlling their environment. The use of proctored programs to monitor test taking in a student’s home is not only an invasion of privacy, but it places undue stress on students to regulate the noises in the home that may be caused by small children, pets, surprise guests or delivery persons, and more, lest they risk being flagged to failtheir exams (Johnston et al., 2021). If someone or somethingmakes noise, it flags the system for cheating and failure. If the student gets up to ensure that noise is not something that needs immediate attention, it flags the system for cheating and failure.

 

It has been demonstrated to be discriminatory to people of color, students in homes with family and/or pets, those living in lower-income situations, and those with mental and/or physical health issues. The risks of the systems flagging one for suspicious activity are extremely high, and the process to petition for a change of grade or request the footage be reviewed is likely very stressful, taxing, and time consuming for the student, instructor, administrators, and proctoring company. There are several references that depict these programs’ discriminatory behaviors in the short list of petitions provided below in this document.

 

The unexpected implementation of proctored quizzes and tests holds students hostage, limiting the places they may take tests. Some students may need to travel, or take their tests at work due to time constraints. Again, proctoring creates the need to vigorously regulate the environment. This restricts students to the smallest, safest room in their home, lest they risk being flagged for failure. One of the many benefits students had for choosing HU was that it met the flexible needs their busy lives demand.

 

Discrimination will occur. Hundreds of petitions already demonstrate that, and any online proctoring software used at HU will yield the same outcomes. The programs are the common denominator and offender, not the school, so outside of avoiding these harmful programs altogether, even the best of efforts will not protect students from becoming victims. Proctoring programs have been proven to invite discriminatory behaviors as racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and white supremacy (Swauger, 2020). People with disabilities will, regardless of intent, be targeted. The growing number of adult students with ADHD is sure to struggle. A lapse in focus could mean a wandering eye. A wandering eye for four seconds can mean failure of the test. The rigidity of the rules of behavior is positively daunting no matter who you are.  

It’s terribly invasive and poses risks to the users. An article discussing online student surveillance software reads (Kelley, 2020):

Students at California State University Fullerton are petitioning the school to stop using Proctorio, calling it “creepy and unacceptable” that students would be filmed in their own house in order to take exams. But it’s not just privacy that's at stake. While almost all the petitions we’ve seen raise very real privacy concerns from biometric data collection, to the often-overbroad permissions these apps require over the students’ devices, to the surveillance of students’ personal environments - these petitions make clear that proctoring apps also raise concerns about security, equity and accessibility, cost, increased stress, and bias in the technology.

It could completely derail a student’s future. Students who are unable to subject themselves to the many risks online proctoring presents may feel forced to boycott tests or even withdraw from the program.  

United States Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen, Tina Smith and Ron Wyden have jointly taken a stand against online proctoring because it creates bias and discrimination (Senator Richard Blumenthal, 2020). Proctorio, the program selected by HU, was specifically called out by the Senators, as they demand answers to these injustices. Select Herzing students will most certainly fall victim to these biases and discrimination with the implementation of Proctorio. Doesn’t it say something that multiple high-level government representatives are stepping in to protect students from these harmful and invasive companies?  

 

The students signing this petition did not sanction privacy violations, and certainly not to this extensive degree.  When we selected Herzing University and signed enrollment agreements, we don’t recall seeing anything about accepting the use of electronic surveillance.

 

When students have asked proctoring organizations to address some of their concerns regarding the extent and manner in which they obtain data, they are not met with answers that decrease their concern but rather statements such as, “we are not at liberty to reveal how our technology works other than to provide that information to your institution to assist them with inquiries” (Dorn, 2020). Did they reveal their data collection methods to you?  We’d like to know what they are. The students signing this petition have substantial reservations about making so much sensitive personal information available to those who refuse to be transparent about their methods and intentions.  

 

Aside from all of this, being forced to have a stranger potentially stare at you in your own home is just creepy and Herzing University’s enforcement of it only invites their students to become potential victims of perverted behavior. Many of those companies have work-at-home arrangements with the proctors, leaving them without supervision. How can we be sure they aren’t engaging in perverted acts while they watch us anxiously take tests? Many sex offenders ‘get off’ on fearful emotions from their victims, and online proctoring in our homes sets the ideal scenario for those perpetrators.

 

Alternatives

• University-owned computers, webcams, and secure VPN internet access provided for proctoring would eliminate some of the concerns we have. Several concerns would still exist but this would be a middle ground and potential resolution, rather than us simply being forced to deal with every risk this decision poses for us.
• Make use of Herzing instructors who are already known to the students and there are no questions about their integrity, their propensity to discriminate, past criminal history, whether or not they support the success of their students, or other variables that cannot be controlled when proctoring is outsourced to unvetted, uninvested strangers.
• If Herzing is absolutely insistent upon proctoring, then use the finances and resources going into Proctorio (or any other unsafe and invasive software), and arrange for each student to have the gold-standard method for proctoring that has been proven to be safe and effective – actual test proctoring sites. Alternatively, the funds for Proctorio could be used to compensate Herzing instructors for the extra time and work it would take to proctor students.
• Invest in other areas of the program(s) that would better support academic integrity and reduce the perceived need for proctoring services. Students are less likely to cheat on work in which they feel invested. Several students have reached out to faculty and administrators to discuss their feelings about their only interaction from Herzingprofessors are verbatim recitations of PowerPoint slides, or joint viewings of 10-year-old YouTubes over Zoom.
• Changing the way we do tests also reduces the perceived need for online proctoring software: avoid multiple-choice exams, give several low-stakes tests/quizzes throughout the semester, allow students to use a page of notes or formulas during the exam, or countless other methods demonstrated to deter cheating behaviors.
 

If an alternative won’t be considered, we have questions. Too many for the one hour Zoom meeting that has already been allocated to several major topics and concerns, so we would like to ask them here.

 

Questions

 

• Why is this change even taking place?
• What preparation and planning were actually put into the implementation of this decision? Not just making the decision to use online proctoring software, but investigating how the countless issues that can go wrong with this software, will be handled. Judging by the panicked response elicited by the informal announcement in a lecture, no one was told this was coming and a formal announcement till remains to be made. These students contacted academic advisors, instructors, and other Herzing personnel to confirm the rumor and that this is actually happening. Every one of those Herzing employees (with the exception of the two Program Chairs contacted) wassurprised as well, meaning they were also in the dark as well. Should we take this to mean that there are not contact persons within the school to assist with login issues, abrupt shutdowns of the program, issues with installation, and troubleshooting of the many, many things of which a student might require assistance?    
• Is it your intent to provide users with computers so they do not have to expose their personal computers to a potential hack?
• Is it your intent to provide VPN cards so that your students’ personal internet access cannot be hacked into, and their physical location is not readily provided to potential predators and thieves?
• What is the vetting process for the online proctors? Nationwide background checks, fingerprinting, Sex Offender Registry, drug and alcohol testing? Do they have direct supervision, or are they within the safe and private confines of their own homes, to do whatever they please on the other side of that screen while invading our homes?
• Proctoring programs have been proven to invite such discriminatory behaviors as racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and white supremacy (Swauger, 2020). What are the required qualifications of the live proctors? Sensitivity training, harassment/sexual harassment awareness course? Personality test? When these issues are reported, HU policy states that Herzing must immediately report any and every discrimination allegation to the Title IX compliance officer and FERPA Compliance Office. What can we anticipate will happen after a discriminatory issue has been reported?  
• Will we be allowed to record ourselves being recorded, for our own protection?
• Is the software vulnerable to attacks, how is it protected and how is the user protected? Proctorio specifically has sued students who wished to know these methods (Whittaker, 2021). In their claims that this is proprietary knowledge, does that mean Proctorio will not provide you, the contracting institution, with this information as well?  
• Is an official testing center even being considered?
• Has using HU instructors for proctoring been considered?
• What provisions will be made for special needs individuals?Those with anxiety, ADHD, physical conditions requiring frequent readjustments, and countless other conditions that would interfere with the proctoring process? Choosing online programs was a saving grace for these individuals, but now they are being forced to try to cope with circumstances that, by choosing Herzing online, they had every reason to believe they would not be subjected.
• How will HU respond to a student who asks to not be proctored by a stranger online due to a history of being a victim to stalking or sexual assault? Are they going to be told to just deal with the ultra-triggering situation of being watched, lest they fail?
• What is the process to appeal claims of ‘cheating’? Is it time-intensive and anxiety-producing, will we have to wait a long time for resolutions, or need to speak to several people? Are we allowed access to our own records and videos, and defend our integrity when these systems and proctors erroneously flag us for suspicious activity?
 

We feel very strongly that we are entitled to and deserving of answers to each of these questions if we are going to be forced into so many profound risks. We would be grateful to have these questions answered as soon as possible, as there are several students who have been placed in limbo while they try to reconcile these many risks with the benefits of remaining a Herzing student, and the new term starts in only a week.

Below is a list of just some of the universities with petitions against the required use of online proctoring applications. This list is by no means exhaustive, and is continuously growing. The petitions outline several instances of discrimination, hundreds of thousands of data breaches, and other safety concerns that have already resulted from the use of online proctoring programs. We sympathize with the students at these schools who must try to recover from being discriminated against, and those who are forced to freeze all of their accounts and several other costly and stressful acts to mitigate the damages the data breaches have caused them. Identity theft can cause problems for people for the rest of their lives.

 

• Auburn University students note that “proctoring software is essentially legitimized spyware.”
• NJIT petitioners write that while students agreed to take classes online, they “DID NOT agree to have [their] privacy invaded.”
• CUNY students successfully leveraged 27,000 signatures to end the “despicable overreach” of proctoring app Proctorio.
• Students at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas College, and Texas A&M called the use of Honorlock “both a blatant violation of our privacy as students and infeasible for many.”
• University of Tennessee Chattanooga students say that “Proctorio claims to keep all information safe and doesn't store or share anything but that is simply not true. Proctorio actually keeps recordings and data on a cloud for up to 30 days after they have been collected.” 
• Washington State University students note that in July, “ProctorU had a data breach of 440,000 students/people's information leaked on the internet.”
• In a letter to the Minister of Colleges and Universities, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associates argue that “Proctortrack and similar proctoring software present significant privacy, security, and equity concerns, including the collection of sensitive personal information and the need for access to high-speed internet and newer computer technologies, These requirements put students at risk, increase their stress and anxiety levels, and leave many students behind.” 
• In a popular post, a self-identified student from Florida State University wrote on Reddit that “we shouldn't be forced to have a third-party company invade our privacy, and give up our personal information by installing what is in reality glorified spyware on our computers.” An accompanying petition by students at FSU says that using Honorlock “blatantly violates privacy rights.”
• CSU Fullerton students call it “creepy and unacceptable” that students would be filmed in their own house in order to take exams, and declare they “will not accept being spied on!”
• Miami University petitioners argue that “Proctorio discriminates against neurodivergent students, as it tracks a student's gaze, and flags students who look away from the screen as 'suspicious' too, which negatively impacts people who have ADHD-like symptoms.” The petition goes on to note that “students with black or brown skin have been asked to shine more light on their faces, as the software had difficulty recognizing them or tracking their movements.”
• CU Boulder students say that, with Proctorio, the “added stress of such an intrusive program may make it harder for students with testing anxiety and other factors to complete the tests.”
• UW Madison students are concerned about Honorlock’s “tracking of secure data whilst in software/taking an exam (cookies, browser history); Identity tracking and tracing (driver's license, date of birth, address, private personal information); Voice Tracking as well as recognition (Specifically invading on privacy of other members of my home); Facial Recognition and storage of such data.”
• Florida International University students note that “Honorlock is allowed to keep [recordings of students] for up to a year, and in some cases up to 2 years.” The petition also notes that “Honorlock requires a webcam and microphone. This places students with limited access to technology or a quiet testing location at a disadvantage…You are required to be in the room alone for the duration of the exam. This does not account for students with difficult living situations.”
• Georgia Tech petitioners are concerned that data collected by Honorlock “could be abused, for example for facial recognition in surveillance software or to circumvent biometric safety system.”
• University of Central Florida students argue that “Honorlock is not a trustworthy program and students should not be forced to sign away their privacy and rights in order to take a test.”
• UMass Lowell students call out the “countless security vulnerabilities that are almost certainly hiding in the Respondus code, waiting to be exploited by malware and/or other forms of malicious software.”
• University of Regina students argue that “facial recognition software and biometric scanners have been shown to uphold racial bias and cannot be trusted to accurately evaluate people of color. Eye movement and body movement is natural and unconscious, and for many neurodivergent people is completely unavoidable."
What your peers have to say on the subject

 

• “One Brigham Young University professor used Proctorio for his upper level psychology course and two thirds of his student got above 90% suspicion rating from the AI on one test. The person who was the least suspicious according to the machine still got 53% suspicion, still over half!”  TheDailyCougar.com (Baker, 2020)
• “To take a test you need to let a stranger have a video recording of your room? Are you kidding me?” said Bill Fitzgerald, a researcher at the nonprofit group Consumer Reports who specializes in education technology.  “These platforms exist because they are selling a narrative that students can’t be trusted,” he said. “The people who have the most to lose here are the students, and they’re the farthest away from the decision. … Students are paying tens of thousands of dollars to have their higher-ed institutions sell them out,” (Harwell, 2020).
• The Academic Senate at San Francisco State Universityrecently passed a resolution calling for third party proctoring to be banned, describing the software as inequitable because it fails to meet accessibility standards and creates unequal hardship for students (Swauger, 2020).
• In response to concerns about bias and surveillance, some schools, like McGill and the University of California, Berkeley, have banned the use of “technology-enabled invigilation” entirely… (Hu, 2020).
• Hu (2020) also reports the following: A 2019 study by Metropolitan State University instructor Daniel Woldeab and University of Minnesota psychologist Thomas Brothen found that students who rated more highly on anxiety scored worse when using proctoring software versus just taking an online test without proctoring. “We have identified an issue that seems to have escaped the attention of researchers studying online learning—test anxiety,” they write “Even if students may not consciously feel anxious or nervous, being proctored can take up valuable brain real estate that might otherwise be used on concentrating on the exam” says Joshua Eyler, director of faculty development at the University of Mississippi and author of How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories Behind Effective College Teaching. “In the best of times, students are wrestling with cognitive load: how much space we have in our brains available to manage the learning task we are given,” he says. “But we’re not in the best of times. We’re in pandemic times.” Learning how to navigate new software, wondering whether it’s working correctly, worrying your roommate might accidentally walk into the frame and trigger the software to flag you as cheating, managing your eye movements to avoid seeming “suspicious”—all that requires mental space. “It’s like a student sitting in a classroom and someone periodically screaming at them, ‘DON’T CHEAT,’ ” says Eyler. It would make anyone jumpy.
• “The fact that students feel the need to cheat is evidence of larger issues in education and educators need to find better ways to support those students rather than penalizing them,” says Shea Swauger, a senior instructor at the University of Colorado Denver’s Auraria Library (Swauger, 2020), discussing online proctoring software.
• “Proctoring programs have been proven to invite such discriminatory behaviors as racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and white supremacy” says Shea Swauger, a senior instructor at the University of Colorado Denver’s Auraria Library (Swauger, 2020). By association, the implementation of proctoring software is allowing for andsupporting these transgressions to be forced on their students.  
• Dorothy Christopher, a postdoctoral fellow teaching an intro plant biology course at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says, “Probably some of my students do cheat, but preventing a small amount of cheating is not worth the cost of assuming my students are all criminals,” (Hu, 2020).
• Skeptics ask me, “How will we stop students from cheating?” My answer: “Do you care more about the students who will experience discrimination or some students who might cheat?” (Swauger, 2020). Shea Swauger, a senior instructor at the University of Colorado Denver’s Auraria Library.
• “The College Board, the company behind the SAT, abandoned plans to use proctoring software for the exam this Saturday because of the technology barriers it creates for students.” NBCNews.com, Shea Swauger, 11/7/20. It would be difficult for an institution to be more concerned with cheating than The College Board. If they won’t give the software their seal of approval, wouldn’t you want to know why?
• “Students are asked to agree to these decisions, but they have no meaningful power not to consent,” said Guy McHendry, an associate professor at Creighton University, which has used Examity for some proctored exams. “And because we’re doing this with such urgency, we don’t really have time to ingest all the implications of what these companies will do,” (Harwell, 2020).
• Several other universities have recently begun using Proctorio and other proctoring services as a result of the pandemic. Many of these colleges have already discontinued their use due to accessibility issues, privacy violations, safety concerns, discrimination, and ineffectiveness (Chin, 2021). Among these are University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne, University of Regina,and Miami University.