Authentication devices transform cheap paper into legitimate documents. They are the sensory, informational, and computational features that make up valuable papers like banknotes and passports, and they provide the confidence required in moments of exchange and passage. These devices – which include techniques like watermarks and specialized threads, proprietary substrates and inks, or RFID chips – are the product of security printing, an industry that continuously reinvents the possibilities of paper. Importantly, these components protect paper things from counterfeiting, allowing it to function as an original and authentic copy and to do the logistical work of connecting quotidian materials to global networks. The value of valuable papers is therefore not purely extrinsic, socially or discursively established, but is also performed through its intrinsic material qualities. These are the authentication devices that are read, assessed, and trusted as paper things are circulated, and they are what securely connects paper to infrastructures of mobility.
As I tweeted earlier this month, ProctorU, the controversial and widely used online proctoring service (aka integrity platform), has released a Student Bill of Rights.
It is up there with a local retailer's assertion (which I used in a seminar last year) that we all have a 'right to be beautiful' ... sounds good but somewhat unenforceable.
The Bill is presumably a response to growing criticism by university students in several jurisdictions regarding the invasiveness of ProctorU, Proctorio and other invigilation services. The platforms are not new … they have for example been in use outside universities for at least ten years regarding certification of financial advisors and that there is convergence between psychometric testing services and exam invigilation services.
At the start of a ProctorU test, students are told to show the proctor their student ID cards, their rooms and the tops of their desks to prove they don't have any cheating material at hand. During the test, the proctor listens through the student's microphone to ensure he or she does not ask for help from someone out of view.
The proctor gains access to the test-takers' computer screens and receives alerts if they do something unacceptable, like copying and pasting text or opening a new browser tab. A video system analyzes the students' eyes: If they look off-screen for four straight seconds more than two times in a single minute, the motion will be flagged as a suspect event - a hint that they could be referencing notes posted off-screen.
To ensure the right student is taking the exam, the software uses facial-recognition software to match them to the image on their ID. Random scans are performed throughout the exam to prevent another test-taker from jumping in.
The company also verifies identities with a typing test: A student may be asked to type 140 words at the beginning of the semester, then again just before testing to verify the speed and rhythms of the student's keystrokes. Any discrepancies can be flagged for closer inspection.
A human proctor watches every second of an exam, though the student cannot see the proctor's face. In previous versions of the software, the student could see the person watching them, but "the creepiness factor always sort of came up," McFarland said. If a proctor suspects cheating, they alert a more aggressive specialist, or an "interventionist," who can demand that students aim their webcam at a suspicious area or face academic penalty.
Proctors typically work out of one of 11 centers across Alabama, California, India, Jamaica, Panama and the Philippines. But with many of those offices closed, the company said, it is opening backup centers in Canada, hiring more than 100 new workers and instructing many proctors to work from home.
Managers in the centres appear to have a disquieting ethic, with the Post reporting
When University of Florida sophomore Cheyenne Keating felt a rush of nausea a few weeks ago during her at-home statistics exam, she looked into her webcam and asked the stranger on the other side: Is it okay to throw up at my desk? He said yes. So halfway through the two-hour test, during which her every movement was scrutinized for cheating and no bathroom breaks were permitted, she vomited into a wicker basket, dabbed the mess with a blanket and got right back to work. The stranger saw everything. When the test was finished, he said she was free to log off. Only then could she clean herself up.
The article states
ProctorU, which oversaw 2 million tests last year from more than 750,000 students, has compiled years of data on students' 15 "behavioral cheating types," McFarland said. Students' tests are live-streamed and recorded for later review: The worst offenders, McFarland said, have had their videos edited together into what he called a cheating "Hall of Fame."
ProctorU's competitors offer similar anti-cheating surveillance with different strategies. Honorlock, a Florida-based company that CEO Michael Hemlepp said has seen "a massive spike in inquiries," uses software that looks for "attempted dishonesty" and then sends in a human proctor for further review.
Proctorio goes further, using a completely software-driven approach. After students consent to letting Proctorio monitor their webcams, microphones, desktops or "any other means necessary to uphold integrity," the system tracks their speech and eye movements, how long they took to complete the test and how many times they clicked the mouse. It then gives professors an automated report ranking test-takers by "suspicion level" and the number of testing "abnormalities." Students deemed untrustworthy by the computer are color-coded in red and given an icon of two shadowy figures, reminiscent of the "Spy vs. Spy" cartoon of Mad magazine fame.
Chris Dayley, the director of academic testing services at Utah State University, which uses Proctorio, described the software with a laugh as "sort of like spyware that we just legitimize." And though many students despise the feeling of being watched, Olsen, the company's chief executive, said the discomfort is worth it if it helps protect the tests. "We're the police," he said.
Civil liberties group Public Citizen notes the egregious litigiousness of ProctorU, which appears to have attempted to silence academic criticism in the US by threatening litigation over a range of its critics supposed harms, including copyright, defamation and trade mark infringement. Not, in my opinion, the service provider that you want to partner with.
As for the Bill of Rights? Privity means it's in essence an expression of puffery ... pretty words that are unenforceable under contract law by Australian students.
The various services are a data breach waiting to happen.
