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Syracuse University’s College of Law will begin using a controversial test proctoring software, despite concerns from students and experts that the software is discriminatory and prone to security breaches. 

Most law students learned that the college would be using the software, called Proctortrack, to administer this fall’s final exams in a Nov. 2 email from the registrar. Others heard about the software from their professors, some of whom refuse to use it because of security risks and bias. 

“The law school is asking us to surrender to a company,” said Lillie Heigl, a third-year law student pursuing a joint degree in public administration. 

Heigl created a Change.org petition, which currently has over 400 signatures, asking the college not to use the software. Students also created a Facebook page and organized an email campaign to encourage college deans and professors to reverse course. 

Proctortrack, an anti-cheating software, uses remote-monitoring technology to collect audio and video and document students’ web activity as they take exams. The software also scans faces, knuckles and student’s IDs to verify students’ identities.

Verificient Technologies, the New York-based company that developed and licenses Proctortrack, has been criticized by students and technology experts following a series of recent security breaches at other schools and colleges. Rutgers is one of multiple universities that halted exams following a Proctortrack breach, one where hackers masqueraded as company employees to gain access to Verficient’s servers. 

Verificient is also the defendant in an ongoing class-action lawsuit in Illinois for allegedly collecting students’ biometric information without their consent.

Company officials maintain that no student data obtained by Proctortrack has ever been compromised. 

For some students, concerns about the proctoring software extend beyond data and security risks, though. Students and experts said the software behind applications such as Proctortrack routinely reinforces racism, ableism and transphobia — failures of design that university officials are rarely qualified to assess. 

Shea Swauger, a librarian at the University of Colorado Denver who researches critical data studies, said colleges and universities often overlook how inequitable technology can impact students from marginalized backgrounds. 

Facial recognition and detection software, commonly used in proctoring services like Proctortrack, tend to be developed by white, cisgender men, and are therefore most accurate at identifying students who fit that mold, Swauger said. 

A 2019 review of facial recognition algorithms by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that almost 200 performed worse on non-white faces. 

“The software is calibrated for white people, but it’s not calibrated for Black people,” Swauger said. 

Students of color are frequently locked out of exams or have to revalidate their identity because proctoring software can’t identify dark-skinned faces, he said. Black students at some schools have resorted to shining flashlights in their faces to get through tests, he said. 

The software also creates issues for transgender students, who may have to prove their identity using state-issued ID cards with inaccurate names or gender information, Swauger said. In some cases, such software requirements could put transgender students in danger by forcing them to come out to professors and peers, he said. 

The software also adversely affects students with disabilities, such as autism and muscular dystrophy, whose ticks or movements during an exam may be flagged by the software as suspicious. 

When schools adopt biased software to regulate their students, it can send the message that diversity and inclusion aren’t priorities, Swauger said. 

“It’s literally saying that this test and this education isn’t built for you,” Swauger said. “We didn’t have you in mind when we thought of these products which means we don’t have you in mind when we’re thinking about our university.” 

Craig Boise, dean of the College of Law, defended Proctortrack in a Nov. 4 email to students. College officials directed The Daily Orange to the same statement when asked for comment.

Boise said professors, not testing software, will be the ultimate arbiters of academic integrity during final exams. The college shares students’ concerns that Proctortrack’s facial recognition and monitoring features may disproportionately impact students of color, students with disabilities and transgender students, he said. 

“The best way to mitigate the impact of these experiences is to leave the ultimate decision making power to a human proctor, which is what we are doing,” Boise said. 

Even if college officials are flexible about screening alleged cheating incidents, they are still promoting software that undermines their previous commitments to diversity and inclusion, said Sara Barthol, a student in the college’s JDinteractive online program.

Barthol, a single parent with an eight-year-old son, sometimes has to help him access online school materials, she said. Looking off-screen to answer her son’s questions or taking notes on paper during her exams could cause the proctoring software to flag her exam for cheating, she said. 

The school’s continued support of the software in the face of so much evidence of bias is disappointing, Barthol said. 

“To make a move like this with something known to have these issues makes the diversity and inclusion efforts disingenuous,” she said. 

In addition to concerns about how the software could impact students with anxiety disorders and other mental illnesses, second-year law student Garrett Allison also said the college is unreasonable for expecting students like him who don’t have webcams to purchase them ahead of exams. 

“I don’t need to pay more because the university administration is too inept to find another way to successfully monitor examinations,” Allison said. “The university has no business being able to look around my apartment, and I don’t want to download software when I don’t know where it comes from.”

Barthol is also hesitant to use software that stores so much personal data about her appearance and identity, she said. When Barthol’s home was broken into nearly a decade ago, the thieves stole credit cards and personal information that is still used to access her accounts today, she said. 

“I know too much about how easy it is to steal information and use it inappropriately,” Barthol said. “I just can’t personally afford the ramifications of a data breach, the anxiety therein, the stress.” 

In his email to students, Boise said student privacy is “of the utmost concern” to administrators. Verificient “treated the college with care” and provided regular updates to SU when Rutgers experienced its Proctortrack security breach in October, he said. 

The company has implemented advanced administrator login security protocols and is also implementing a data privacy dashboard, which will allow students to monitor what proctoring data has been retained and when it will be purged, Boise said. 

Students said Boise’s statement isn’t enough. They want the college to eliminate remote proctoring completely. 

“Students shouldn’t be expected to risk not only their sensitive information being exposed, but that of others, simply because the school decided we have to,” said Crystal Torres, a third-year law student. “The administration’s actions show just how out of touch with reality they are and how little they care about students.” 

Torres thinks college officials should return to open-book exams, like many professors utilized in the spring after classes shifted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Heigl and Allison agreed. 

If the college goes through with the proctoring software, Barthol said she wants some sort of guarantee that the university will reimburse her should her data and financial information be compromised. She said she hopes college officials will show students compassion and take the school’s diverse population into account when they make decisions about proctoring in the future. 

Swauger said the backlash to the software is likely an indication that the college needs to reexamine how it assesses students. Though there are better software options available, test proctoring software is inherently not reformable, he said. 

“If you say you need it, it means that your teaching is already off the rails, that you are pedagogically asking the wrong questions and valuing the wrong things,” Swauger said. 

Published on November 10, 2020 at 11:23 pm

Contact Michael: msessa@syr.edu | @MichaelSessa3