PROJECTS
In March last year, students brought Western into their bedrooms.
The frenzied first wave of the pandemic changed almost every reality of the university experience. Western University, and all universities, had to adapt.
Many of the first-draft fixes to the pandemic’s problems have been updated or adjusted. But one of the most noticeable changes would stretch the whole year: Western began monitoring students with Proctortrack, a software meant to ensure they wouldn’t use their new isolation to cheat.
In March last year, students brought Western into their bedrooms.
The frenzied first wave of the pandemic changed almost every reality of the university experience. Western University, and all universities, had to adapt.
Many of the first-draft fixes to the pandemic’s problems have been updated or adjusted. But one of the most noticeable changes would stretch the whole year: Western began monitoring students with Proctortrack, a software meant to ensure they wouldn’t use their new isolation to cheat.
Proctortrack is a remote proctoring software students download onto their personal computers. While it watches students take tests, it collects face scans, monitors keystroke data and records video and audio, all of which Western University acknowledges uses "invasive technology."
Proctortrack and similar online proctoring services have drawn criticism from students and educators across North America over the past year, questioning how far universities can invade students’ privacy to protect academic integrity — especially after Proctortrack was breached in October, though the company says no student data was compromised.
The surveillance software came under fire after it entered students’ lives without much explanation. Though Western and Verificient, which owns Proctortrack, readily explain why remote proctoring is necessary — because students cheat — Western did not explain why it chose Proctortrack: an executive committee made the call, without involving the Senate, where students are represented and which handles academic violations.
And after two semesters of pushback from faculty and students alike, Western has begun talks to bring in another remote proctoring software — though any future plans will not go through Senate, Western confirmed, and will instead be decided within the administration.
The Western Gazette interviewed seven people of interest, including the co-founder of Verificient, Western’s head of cyber security and various professors and students.
Together, their stories show Western’s quiet move to video proctoring.
Student, Ivey School of Business
Openly refused to use Proctortrack
Professor, Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies
Masters student, Software Engineering
Cyber Security Teaching Assistant
Student, Faculty of Science
Creator of the Anti-Proctortrack Petition
Director, Cyber Security and Business Services at Western University
Assistant Professor, Information and Media Studies
Studies the ethical impacts of artificial intelligence
Co-Founder and COO of Verificient Technologies, Proctortrack's parent company
Student, Ivey School of Business | Openly refused to use Proctortrack
Professor, Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies
Masters student, Software Engineering | Cyber Security Teaching Assistant
Student, Faculty of Science | Creator of the Anti-Proctortrack Petition
Director, Cyber Security and Business Services at Western University
Assistant Professor, Information and Media Studies | Studies the ethical impacts of artificial intelligence
Co-Founder and COO of Verificient Technologies, Proctortrack's parent company
Cold Davison refuses to use Proctortrack.
The fourth-year student found out Ivey Business School required students to download and use the robo-proctoring software only two weeks before his midterms.
He emailed his professors and academic advisors to tell them he refused to download the software. Had he known in advance, Davison says he would have deferred his final year at Western.
But, Davison understands why the university chose Proctortrack.
Western was one of the first post-secondary schools in the country to close its doors, locking down on March 12, and with the sudden switch to online learning, the end of the semester hung in the balance.
The University of Toronto, York University, Carleton University and McMaster University followed with their own closures the next day and soon the country entered its first lockdown.
Professors had less than a month to iron out exams and just four days to transition lectures online, scrambling to adapt their time-tested curricula to the online world.
Some aspects of traditional in-person education — essays, projects and presentations — transitioned online with ease. But conducting midterms and finals proved difficult. These tests are often the cornerstone of university courses and exam season was quickly approaching.
Many students ended the winter semester with take-home assignments and reweighted essays instead of remotely proctored exams. Western later struck a deal with Proctortrack over the summer through eCampusOntario, a government not-for-profit that recommended the software. By fall semester, Proctortrack was in use across campus.
Professor, Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies
Western’s deal let professors mandate the use of Proctortrack in their courses, including courses students needed to graduate.
Some professors chose to avoid the robo-proctoring tool, instead offering Zoom proctoring or replacing exams with multiple smaller assignments, but the university did not make any other software available for students uncomfortable using Proctortrack.
Assistant Professor, Information and Media Studies | Studies the ethical impacts of artificial intelligence
Proctortrack, developed by artificial intelligence firm Verificient Technologies, records students through webcams during tests, monitors system processes, restricts tabs and follows keystrokes.
The software flags any of its programmed warning signs in the videos for instructors to review if they choose. All decisions around potential cheating are made by professors and university administrators, not Verificient.
Professor, Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies
During the onboarding process, Proctortrack requires the user to scan their ID to verify their identity. This ID can be government issued, such as a driver’s license, though Western recommends using a student card.
The auto-proctoring software allows professors to conduct exams in a similar format to in-person evaluations but with increased surveillance. Trosow, who has proctored live exams before, noted the differences: Western stores videos of students taking tests for six months, while biometric data is stored for a year. Students can request for professors to erase their data sooner.
The university’s online proctoring resource — created halfway through first semester — recommends students remove the software from their computer once their tests are finished. Verificient also promised all Canadian data is stored on Canadian servers.
Director, Cyber Security and Business Services at Western University
On social media, many students claimed the intense surveillance increased their anxiety during exams. Miscommunication about the amount of data Proctortrack has access to also led to swirling rumours of stolen banking information and crashed computers.
Other students on popular Western social media groups said they are concerned with collection of biometric data and the potential for another security breach.
Computer science professor Aleksander Essex voiced his displeasure with the school’s decision to use Proctortrack on Twitter, stating he couldn’t in good conscience subject his students to technology he would not use himself.
Essex runs Western’s Information Security and Privacy Research Laboratory and is considered a cybersecurity expert by his colleagues and Western itself.
While many professors spoke to the Gazette about Proctortrack, Essex declined to be interviewed as he was in the process of discussing the software with the university.
Masters student, Software Engineering | Cyber Security Teaching Assistant
During the Gazette’s investigation, Western officials repeatedly declined to provide information regarding the school’s decision to implement Proctortrack.
The university eventually agreed to an interview with the head of cybersecurity Colin Couchman, who only spoke to the software’s exterior security, rather than the decision to adopt it.
Director, Cyber Security and Business Services at Western University
Though discussed briefly, the decision to use Proctortrack never went to a vote in the Senate, Western’s academic decision-making body.
The Senate is an often adversarial assembly of administration alongside professors and elected student representatives. Major policy victories in recent years, like pass-fail courses and the fall reading week, came from debate in the Senate. Elected student senators are also some of the only voices students have in shaping academic policy.
This includes cheating. The Senate Committee for Academic Policy and Awards — a subcommittee within the decision-making body with profs, students and Western’s top brass — files annual reports to the body on that year’s cheating trends.
The subcommittee is also charged with “review[ing] the academic content of agreements with external institutions.” The Subcommittee on Information Technology, also part of the Senate, leads “security-related policies for University-owned networks and systems and those attached to the campus Internet,” among other duties.
Professor, Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies
In an interview with the Gazette, Western’s president Alan Shepard said his administration chose the software with the help of a “presidential standing committee on technology-related security issues.”
“I don’t think it’s a Senate issue. I think it’s an administrative issue,” Shepard said, when asked if any future decisions on proctoring software would be brought to the Senate.
Davison has become one of the public faces in the fight against Proctortrack, appearing in local media to discuss his concerns after the company was breached in the fall.
And he wasn’t the only one. Concerns over both the proctoring software and Western’s sudden implementation swept across campus throughout first semester.
By the end of September, students like Davidson and Corey Vercauteren were starting to feel uneasy. Vercauteren, a third-year computer science student, sent emails and had meetings with his undergraduate chair and department head about his concerns, but he felt nothing was going to change by working within the system.
Vercauteren launched an online petition on Sept. 25; over 10,000 people signed in less than a month — though there is no way to verify if these signatories are all students. . He was hoping the public spectacle of a petition would land him a meeting with Western’s top brass, but the university only acknowledged it months later in their remote proctoring FAQs online.
The petition pushes for Western to completely remove Proctortrack in favour of in-house proctoring, either through a Western-based web service or Zoom.
Student, Faculty of Science | Creator of the Anti-Proctortrack Petition
Vercaunteren’s concerns only grew as Proctortrack was hacked Oct. 13, shutting down their services for a week at the height of midterms. Western was left without any backup plans and was forced to delay midterms or find quick alternatives to the auto-proctoring software.
Ivey Business School dropped Proctortrack entirely following the breach.
Verificient says no student data was accessed in the security breach, but the hacker “leaked part of the source code, disabled [Proctortrack’s] marketing site and sent offensive emails.” The program was running again by Oct. 22 and Western resumed use on Oct. 27 after an audit.
Proctortrack said they understand that students and faculty will be concerned about this incident, but “security breaches, unfortunately, happen, and are part of our modern tech world.”
Andrew Hrymak, Western’s former provost and now special advisor to the president, told students if they were uncomfortable with online proctoring, they could drop the course in a Oct. 16 Senate meeting — just a few days after the security breach.
Western’s Former Provost | Special Advisor to the President
Students could also request to delay their exam until in-person tests could take place, but this was not an option for many students who cannot afford to delay graduation.
“It is not a route that we hope our students select, but unfortunately, our options are limited in maintaining academic integrity under the confinement of pandemic control measures,” Western wrote online about students dropping a course to avoid the software.
Western wrote to students Oct. 29, saying they heard the concerns about e-proctoring, but would continue to use Proctortrack for first semester assessments.
"We have heard the concerns of students, faculty, and other members of our community with respect to Western’s decision to use Proctortrack,” reads the email to students. “We acknowledge this tool uses invasive technology to operate."
Co-Founder and COO of Verificient Technologies
According to Western’s Board of Governors, there were 814 concerns brought to the administration by students, 52 of which were COVID-19 related grievances. Only twelve per cent were regarding Proctortrack.
Issues ranged from technical difficulties with the software to complaints regarding privacy concerns.
Co-Founder and COO of Verificient Technologies
As has been noted time and again, students cheat.
Scholastic offences have steadily increased over the last five years at Western, and with classes shifting primarily online, the once heavily-regulated testing environment has been upended.
MacEwan University in Alberta reported a 38 per cent increase in scholastic offences from March 15, 2020 to the end of the semester compared to last school year. The reported amount of students cheating at the University of Waterloo nearly doubled over the 2019-20 school year.
Administrators from Waterloo suggested the tendency for students to cheat could be a “stress reaction” to the pandemic, as students are feeling the heat while still expected to complete a difficult school year.
Western has yet to release statistics for the same time period.
Assistant Professor, Information and Media Studies | Studies the ethical impacts of artificial intelligence
Rahul Siddharth, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Verificient, cites contract cheating — where students hire someone else to take their tests or write their essays — as one of the major concerns Proctortack’s identity verification serves to mitigate.
Co-Founder and COO of Verificient Technologies
According to Siddharth, Verificient is acutely aware of the negative response Proctortrack has received from students and is working to address their concerns.
In November, Siddharth told the Gazette the company was rolling out a three-part security initiative called “cyber secure smart” which aims to tackle transparency, privacy and security. This includes a student privacy dashboard, through which students can track when their data is taken, how it is used and when it is eventually deleted. Siddharth said the dashboard is scheduled to be released sometime during the winter semester.
Verificient is also developing an alternative web-proctorting product called Proctor DIY which will allow up to 25 students to attend an exam alongside their course instructor, who can help answer questions.
The privacy dashboard and Proctor DIY have not been released as of January. Siddharth and Verificient have not responded to several emails asking for an update on their progress.
Professor, Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies
And after months of pushing back, petitions and advocacy, the university is in talks with another online proctoring company at the recommendation of the Advisory Selection Committee made up of staff and students.
“I think there's no perfect system out there, if there were a perfect system, we'd all be using it. And we wouldn't be having these discussions,” Shepard told the Gazette.
Western is aiming to bring on the new company by the summer term and will allow professors to choose whether to use it or Proctortrack. The university has also made tentative plans to bring students back on campus by September — meaning the new software would only be used for a semester. All summer courses are set to be taught remotely.
Though Western won’t say which company yet — the talks are too preliminary — and the fate of an in-person fall semester hangs in the balance, the question remains of how far this new online proctoring company will push students’ privacy to protect academic integrity.
Update (March 23, 2021): This article was updated with additional information about Western University's agreement with eCampusOntario.
With photos from Yifei Zhang