University of Wollongong has reaffirmed its commitment to introduce a contentious exam invigilation software students say infringes on their privacy.
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The move comes after students kicked off a petition to prevent the university using Proctorio, a software that observes students on their computers while they take exams.
The organisers of the petition described the security measure as a "massive privacy concern and an invasion of our rights".
Wollongong Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) general representative Ben Hancock also wrote an open letter to UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Patricia M Davidson, arguing among many things that Proctorio "represents significant risks to students' privacy, mental health and university accessibility".
But Professor Theo Farrell, UOW's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Student Life), told the Mercury, that moving forward the university would be holding the majority end-of-semester exams online and remotely.
He said the decision aligns with the move to online exams that was taking place across the Australian university sector, on the back of the continued challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensures students can progress their studies safely.
"The students' concerns are our concerns. From the outset our number one consideration was to ensure the privacy of student data. That's why we chose Proctorio, as it allows you to put very high privacy settings on it," Professor Farrell said.
"We don't gather any private data from students.
"It is an extension on a web browser. It doesn't have access to their computers. It doesn't have access to their phones. The information is encrypted. It is end to end encryption, it is only looked at by our staff and not looked by the provider staff.
"It is stored on a secure cloud server that is not US-based, It meets the highest European standards, which is called the GDPR."
He said the decision to utilise Proctorio as the exam invigilation platform was made after extensive consultation across UOW including a selection panel involving both staff and student representation.
The university has also undertaken multiple pilot exams over the last two years with staff and student feedback incorporated for Autumn 2022 and beyond.
Prof Farrell said of the 12 universities in NSW/ACT, seven already use a commercially-provided proctoring service and one like UOW is introducing it this semester.
"We selected Proctorio to meet our needs because we assessed that it offered the highest privacy settings," he said.
"Proctorio is currently in use at four Australian universities, the Australian National University (ANU), University of Canberra (UC), Australian Catholic University (ACU) and Deakin University."
But student Ben Hancock said major and legitimate concerns remained in relation to data breaches.
"In the last three years, USYD, UNSW, UQLD, ANU and many more universities in Australia have had multiple data breaches with the biggest breach occurring in 2020 because of ProctorU, a similar program," he wrote.
"In the Netherlands, a Proctorio exploit left tens of thousands of students vulnerable to secret recordings through the person's web camera and access payment accounts. Luckily, it was found by ethical hackers.
"Given that Australian universities and Proctoring [sic] software used by education facilities both have and had data breaches, it is the position of WUSA and students that the University could not guarantee the privacy and safety of its students."
WUSA plans to hold a protest rally at UOW library on May 4 from 12.30pm.
Prof Farrell said a student had yet to raise a concern about data privacy that the university had not actually already addressed.
"Nine out of 12 universities in NSW have moved to proctoring tools. We are a late adopter. We are at least a year behind most universities," he said.
"We spoke to the teams at a number of universities and they all report the exact same experience, which is, 'the first time you roll this out, there's lots of concerns. By the second exam season it has all died down and people are used to it'.
"This is one of the safest things people will do on the Internet."
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Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
