As students have shifted to remote learning this year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, educators have adopted tools that have made the transition possible. Exam monitoring software, a new tool that allows students to take exams remotely, has been criticized by students and educators over alleged privacy violations and reliability issues.

According to a report by VICE News, students around the world are pushing back against the recent adoption of exam monitoring software. The software records students via their webcam while they take tests to prevent cheating.

Some exam monitoring platforms use AI to track the movement of students.  For example, students at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada, were told that they would fail their exam if their face or hands left the view of their computer’s webcam.

“I must be able to see these at all times while testing. If you have a web camera built into your computer, you will need to move your computer back from you to fit all of this in,” instructions from a professor read. “If I cannot see all of this, I will have to set your exam score to 0%.”

 Students were also instructed to hit foam earplugs they are required to wear with a hard object prior to their exams. The exercise was designed to ensure that students are not using wireless headsets to retrieve answers during an exam.

“In plain view of your webcam … place the ear plugs on your desk and use a hard object to hit each ear plug before putting it in your ear—if they are indeed just foam ear plugs they will not be harmed,” the instructions read.

Issues with exam monitoring software extend far beyond the inconveniences that they impose upon students. At Concordia University in Montreal, one professor reportedly failed over 60 students because an exam monitoring software called Proctorio failed to save their exam files.

“For the PHYS 205 EC course over the summer, over 60 students received an F because the proctorio software didn’t register their exams, and [the professor] said that he couldn’t do anything,” one student claimed.

The New York Times reported in September that ExamSoft, the software developer behind a monitoring platform by many states for this year’s bar exam, had been accused of discriminating against minority students. Some minority students reported that software was unable to recognize their faces.

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