Rutgers students taking exams are required to pay $32 in fees for Verificient’s Proctortrack, an anti-cheating program that collects, audio, video, web activity and “scans the ID, face and knuckles” as well as voice-prints.
Rutgers entered into a hasty “verbal agreement” with Proctortrack last spring, which was turned into a retroactive contract (that went into effect seven months before it was signed) in August, in which the company promised to purge student data after 90 days and email students to confirm this.
Students say Verificient hasn’t fulfilled this part of its bargain.
Verificient is said to be working with the TSA to roll out similar software for travellers.
Coming soon: a giant robot that looms over children while they take tests, clicking and whirring ominously.
During the seven months under the verbal agreement, confusion and miscommunications arose over the price of the software and its slipshod introduction to students, as well as how long the private company would retain student’s personal data, and whether students had to use it or if they could use alternative proctoring methods.
Students were also frustrated about the $32 fee to use the software, and the perceived lack of notification, which resulted in many students finding out about the new software after it was too late to drop their courses.
Rutgers student Betsy Chao launched a petition in February calling for an end to Rutgers’ use of the software.
University officials, along with Verificient CEO Tim Dutta, maintained that the introduction of the software in the beginning of the spring 2015 semester went flawlessly.
ProctorTrack Company Not Complying With Rutgers Contract [Daniel Muñoz/New Brunswick Today]
(Thanks, Larry!)