Is Online Test-Monitoring Here to Stay?
Adding sources of light seems to help, but it comes with consequences. Despite these preparations, “I know that I’m going to have to try a couple times before the camera recognizes me,” he said. Like many test-takers of color, Yemi-Ese, who is Black, has spent the past three semesters using software that reliably struggles to locate his face. Now, whenever he sits down to take an exam using Proctorio, he turns on every light in his bedroom, and positions a ring light behind his computer so that it shines directly into his eyes.
“That’s hard when you’re actively trying not to look away, which could make it look like you’re cheating.” “I have a light beaming into my eyes for the entire exam,” he said. When we first spoke, last November, he told me that, in seven exams he’d taken using Proctorio, he had never once been let into a test on his first attempt. Other anecdotes call attention to the biases that are built into proctoring programs.
that may bear a previous name. In video calls with live proctors from ProctorU, test-takers have been forced to remove bonnets and other non-religious hair coverings—a policy that has prompted online pushback from Black women in particular—and students accessing Wi-Fi in public libraries have been ordered to take off protective masks. Low-income students have been flagged for unsteady Wi-Fi, or for taking tests in rooms shared with family members.
Students with dark skin described the software’s failure to discern their faces. Transgender students have been outed by Proctorio’s “ID Verification” procedure, which requires that they pose for a photograph with an I.D. Excuse me ma’am, I was having a full on breakdown mid test and kept pulling tissues.” Another protested, “i was doing so well till i got an instagram notification on my laptop and i tried to x it out AND I GOT FUCKING KICKED OUT.” A third described getting an urgent text from a parent in the middle of an exam and calling back—”on speaker phone so my prof would know I wasn’t cheating”—to find out that a family member had died.
“Now proctorio has a video of me crying,” the student wrote. One student tweeted, “professor just emailed me asking why i had the highest flag from proctorio. The surge in online-proctoring services has launched a wave of complaints. Anti-online-proctoring Twitter accounts popped up, such as @Procteario and @ProcterrorU. A letter of protest addressed to the CUNY administration has nearly thirty thousand signatures. More recently, several students in Illinois have sued their institutions for using the software, alleging that it violates their rights under a state law that protects the privacy of residents’ biometric data.
against five proctoring companies, arguing that they illegally collect students’ personal data. senators sent letters to Proctorio, ProctorU, and ExamSoft, requesting information about “the steps that your company has taken to protect the civil rights of students,” and proof that their programs securely guard the data they collect, “such as images of [a student’s] home, photos of their identification, and personal information regarding their disabilities.” (Proctorio wrote a long letter in response, defending its practices.) On December 9th, the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center submitted a complaint to the attorney general of D.
