UBC failed to meet FOI response timelines in 90% of requests, audit finds. “This report is a cautionary tale for all public bodies about what can happen when they treat transparency as secondary rather than fundamental to their core mission", said the Information and Privacy Commissioner of BC.

Earlier this month, Temple University published new Proctorio documentation confirming that Proctorio still tracks head and eye movement in 2025. Recording this as evidence of five years of harm. foxonline.temple.edu/wp-content/u...

If you liked me when I called out Google, don't be surprised when I call out Microsoft.

CBC reports that TikTok has been collecting sensitive information from hundreds of thousands of Canadians under 13 years old. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Happy Right to Know Week! Celebrate your right to know by accessing over 500 Privacy Impact Assessments acquired via FOI at privacylibrary.ca. www.oic-ci.gc.ca/en/right-know

Four Canadian Privacy Commissioners investigated TikTok and found that the measures in place to keep children off the platform and prevent the collection and use of their sensitive personal information for profiling and targeting purposes were inadequate. Full report: www.oipc.bc.ca/documents/in...

They put in the newspaper that I got mad.

Librarians Are Being Asked to Find AI-Hallucinated Books www.404media.co/librarians-a...

Ian Linkletter, a librarian at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, told the Washington Post that “Google is undermining academic integrity by shoving AI in students’ faces during exams.” www.thedailybeast.com/google-chrom...

“Chrome’s cheating tool exemplifies Big Tech’s continuing gold rush approach to AI: launch first, consider consequences later and let society clean up the mess.”

“Google is undermining academic integrity by shoving AI in students’ faces during exams, Google is trying to make instructors give up on regulating AI in their classroom, and it might work. Chrome has the market share to change student behavior, and it appears this is the goal.” wapo.st/47OPRzL

Google backtracked after I tipped the Washington Post to how they were pushing AI functionality during exams. wapo.st/47OPRzL

Google blinked.

It has always been bad, but if you’ve been on the fence, this is a great reason to delete your academia.edu account.

I have personally tested this and the Homework Help link is now appearing everywhere in Canvas *except* Quizzes. The relevant flag in Google Chrome is "Lens Overlay EDU action chip" but as you can see, the "triggering criteria" targeting every LMS is not explained. Is it based on contents or URL?

I've seen a report that Google has withdrawn this functionality. Can anyone confirm in Canvas? If Google blinked on this, that's huge.

Has your institution warned faculty about Google Chrome's new "Homework Help" feature? These ones have. UC Berkeley: rtl.berkeley.edu/news/google-... Lesley University: support.lesley.edu/support/solu... University of Alabama: cit.ua.edu/known-issue-... UCLA: humtech.ucla.edu/alert/alert-...

Google recently updated Chrome to detect when you are taking an LMS quiz and offer "Homework Help" in the address bar. Students are encouraged to upload screenshots of their quiz to Google Lens to get answers. Panic is spreading. Increased surveillance is coming. We can stop it. Watch me. Join me.

Proctorio now claims to be able to detect the use of "smart glasses". Recent research shows that Proctorio's software has a higher "failure to detect" rate for people with darker skin tones, people with head coverings, and people with glasses. racismandtechnology.center/wp-content/u...

Anyone learning technology specialists or teaching faculty able to replicate this today in Canvas or Brightspace? Let me know.

Have you heard of Google Chrome's new "Homework Help" feature? It detects when you are in a Canvas quiz and gives you the answers. Good luck, proctoring software. Video: drive.google.com/file/d/1uT_I...

Canada’s new Minister of AI must not be naive to its harms www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/4e12d7e...

Massey University is discontinuing the use of Turnitin's faulty AI detector. “We will ensure that your qualification remains trusted and respected by including secured assessments at key points in every qualification.” www.massivemagazine.org.nz/articles/i3a...

GPT-5 is emphatic that Proctorio is racist.

Curtin University is discontinuing the use of Turnitin's faulty AI detector. "This change is about fostering trust and clarity within a modern academic culture and continuously improving our assessments to ensure they are secure, fair, relevant and future-ready." www.curtin.edu.au/news/oasis-n...

I needed to edit linkletter.org yesterday. Proctorio will drag this out as long as they can. I was 36 when I was sued, now I'm 41. One day I will be free from this meritless lawsuit, but I will never be defeated and have the pro bono legal counsel needed to sustain the fight as long as it takes.

University of Southern Indiana is ditching Proctorio for Honorlock. This keeps happening, again and again. I guess people don't like doing business with litigious bullies.

Today is five years since Proctorio sued me. The lawsuit continues.

Can I tell you about a little project that took six years from proposal stage to release? Community of Praxis is a fully peer-reviewed scholarly podcast about teaching and learning. It’s also (I think) fun, accessible, and a little bit radical in its focus on care. It’s out today!

Google refusing to comply with privacy commissioner's 'right to be forgotten' decision www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

It looks at people’s Rate My Professor. 💀

Twice today I noticed a crow with a peanut. Later I saw someone sitting on their porch with about 15 crows attentively hanging out.

Grammarly is now an AI and plagiarism detection company, with Enterprise and Education plans coming. Grammarly is academic surveillance software. www.theverge.com/news/760508/...

Great news for CEOs behaving inappropriately on Reddit. www.theverge.com/news/757538/...

You can read the civil complaint and subscribe to updates at Courtlistener. www.courtlistener.com/docket/70989....

Just put the finishing touches on my presentation for the Civics of Technology 2025 conference tomorrow morning: "Centering Student Voices in Resisting Surveillance". I can't believe I get to speak after @hypervisible.bsky.social! He has taught me so much. @civicsoftech.bsky.social #CivicsOfTech25

I am grateful to BCIT for including me on the AI Governance Committee! I'm going to focus on ethics and protecting students.

Who has written the essay that talks about ai in terms of Blackness, literacy, and access to knowledge? Part of why I hate these systems so much is because I know the hard-fought battles just to use the library or learn to read. Now folks are telling us their machine has all the answers. 🤷🏿‍♂️

Setting the record straight: Scientists show that the algorithm that Proctorio used is incredibly biased towards people with a darker skin colour racismandtechnology.center/2025/07/29/s...

Hat-tip to Hans de Zwart of the Racism and Technology Center: racismandtechnology.center/2025/07/29/s...

OpenCV's "failure to detect rate" is highest for people with darker skin tones, people with head coverings, and people with glasses. Racism, cultural discrimination, and ableism. Guess which remote proctoring tool contains all 3? Research link: racismandtechnology.center/wp-content/u...

New research confirms previous findings that OpenCV, the open source facial detection software used by Proctorio, is racially biased. Performance Differentials in Deployed Biometric Systems Caused by Open-Source Face Detectors: racismandtechnology.center/wp-content/u...

University of Cape Town is discontinuing use of Turnitin's AI detector. "AI detection tools including the one available in Turnitin have been found to be unreliable in university contexts, often producing false positives or negatives or easily being subverted." www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-202...

From 2019: “Short filed a FOIA request, UBC refused, he had to appeal to the OIPC to get his own data. When the file arrived, ‘It was something like 400,301,000 individual data points about me.’ Well beyond test scores & basic analytics: how he used his mouse, how & when he interacted with the LMS.”

The OpenAI integration is not the only thing Instructure announced today. Here is their new logo. "The updated identity signals a modern, dynamic and future-ready approach designed to advance learning. Instructure is setting potential in motion." www.instructure.com/press-releas...

Yikes for higher education in Canada, where the past 5 years have been spent going all-in on Microsoft products. wapo.st/3TRrqcP

I spoke with @ubyssey.ca about the Canadian Privacy Library and UBC’s opposition to the project. UBC is following in Proctorio’s footsteps, and you’ll see how. ubyssey.ca/news/ubc-dis...

Office of the Independent Adjudicator Case CS072506: "[A student] said that an AI detection tool showed that feedback had been partly AI generated." The student lost, because "AI detection tools can be unreliable." www.oiahe.org.uk/resources-an...

Office of the Independent Adjudicator Case CS072505: "A postgraduate student was invited to respond to allegations of suspected academic misconduct after Turnitin indicated that an essay contained a high proportion of AI-generated content, including hallucinated references." The student settled.

Office of the Independent Adjudicator Case CS072504: "An international student was asked to attend a viva because Turnitin had indicated that their module assignment contained a high percentage of AI-generated content." The student won partial justification. www.oiahe.org.uk/resources-an...