Around the start of 2021, due to public backlash, the usage of Proctorio; a highly controversial proctoring software by both students and administrators in many other universities was no longer being used in UIUC.

However, a software in the same vain in multiple courses, particularly with online degree programs called ProctorU.

ProctorU collects the following data as stated in the Chrome web extension privacy practices section:

• Personally Identifying Information (which can include your name, address, email address, age, other ID numbers tied to your browser)
• Financial and Payment Information (including transactions, credit card numbers, credit ratings, financial statements, payment histories)
• Authentication Information (passwords, credentials, security question answers, PIN numbers)
• Personal Communications (Including emails, texts, and chat messages)
• Location (region, IP, GPS, information about things in the device's proximity)
• User Activity (Network monitoring, clicks, keystroke logs, as well as mouse position and scrolling)

It has access to your camera feed, camera, microphone, and can monitor what tabs you have open in your browser. They advise against consuming food in your own living area, as they are constantly monitoring your audio feed.

They do claim that they do not collect personal data outside of the scope of any given exam, but the fact that it has access to completely unnecessary sensitive information such as payment information and could possibly collect that at all is very problematic.

This is especially considering they have had data breaches of personal identifying information, and has faced lawsuits for violating the Illinois Biometric Information Act (BIPA) as of 2021. They say that data will never be sold or shared to a third party, but their privacy policy has exceptions listed for the sharing of information to a third party. This lack of transparency, consistency, and the lack of care for this company to handle such sensitive information is very alarming.

UIUC also requires the authority to allow remote access to your entire computer to one of their proctors during these exams, which has a very high potential for misuse to occur. ProctorU also does similar AI based tracking and facial recognition to Proctorio, so they essentially switched to another provider with the same exact ethical concerns.

We as students do understand the need for upholding academic integrity, but just because one company now is not used, that does not mean that the principles of wanting to have security and privacy to our own devices is not a non-issue. It should not be at the immense cost of privacy, security, and risk to the test-taker for a negligible gain in catching cheating.