Indoctrinating Digital Surveillance

27 April 2021 (Wall Street International)*   —  Due to the current Covid-19 lockdown, educational and many other institutions are turning to surveillance tools in unprecedented numbers, under the banner of “proctoring”.

Schools and office jobs are engaging in extensive surveillance to supervise examinations and work remotely. Typically, a student/worker is monitored while completing an assignment or exam using a combination of tools including the specific equipment webcam, microphone, and screen.

Normally access is granted to these tools on the equipment through third-party platforms, but it can be possible an “in-house” development.

I have written here about the rise of surveillance capitalism and ponder the grim future to which that Orwellian path leads. But to be honest, for our students happening now, really? That future is taking place as I am writing these lines, as they try to act dutifully in front of their “dogy webcams”.

While there is clear evidence that academic surveillance is dangerous, there is little evidence that it is effective at preventing cheating or that online evaluations require extraordinary anti-cheating measures.

Moreover, it’s not just privacy that’s at stake; while there exists undoubtedly very real privacy concerns (from biometric data collection, to the unnecessary permissions these “technologies” require over the students’ devices, to the invasion of students’ personal environments) these matters make clear that proctoring technologies also raise concerns about security, equity and accessibility, cost, increased stress, and bias in the technology.

For example, nobody is aware these changes acknowledge the painful reality that it is impossible to conduct fair online tests, when some students are able to take them in sprawling home offices, and others take tests while crammed into a closet, a restroom, or outside the public wifi of a crowded Starbucks. These demands cannot be simply met by many low-income students, rural students, and students with challenging family situations such as homelessness.

Additionally, being forced to show a stranger their living conditions may cause students living in poverty great discomfort and distress feelings that may directly affect a student’s performance in general.