Draft:Proctorio

Proctorio is a proctoring software that is made by an American company of the same name. In 2020, the software oversaw at least 21 million exams. This is in comparison to 6 million in 2019.

History
Founder Mike Olsen created the company after realizing how expensive and inefficient remote proctoring was at the time. Back then, people were used to invigilate exams and Olsen thought that software and algorithms would be better suited to the job.

Overview
Proctorio is an extension on Google Chrome that works through the usage of machine learning and facial detection. The software allows users to upload their identification and uses the camera and microphone of user's devices. The software does not make note of specific keystrokes or mouse movements. However, the software makes use of eye tracking. The software flags suspicious behaviour so that the professor can review them later. This behaviour is reported in the form of a ranked list.

Proctorio generally costs around $500,000 for one year.

The Chrome extension has been installed at least 2 million times.

Clients
Proctorio has been used by around 2,500 clients as of 2021.

Current clients

 * Western University

Former clients

 * University of Illinois: Announced January 2021, effective Summer 2021. The University cited privacy and accessibility concerns as the reason.
 * University of Washington
 * Baylor University

Criticism
In April 2020, Proctorio requested that an article written by Shea Swuager, a research librarian at University of Colorado Denver, be removed from a scientific journal because it claimed that Proctorio used facial recognition. Swauger had previously stated that the software's flagging system for "abnormal behaviour" might be disadvantageous to people suffering from disabilities such as ADHD.

Researcher Akash Satheesan concluded that Proctorio does not recognize Black faces 57 percent of the time, with other ethnicities receiving lower rates of failure. The conclusion was reached after it was determined that Proctorio uses OpenCV for its facial detection technology.

In December 2020, Fight for the Future released a statement that called for McGraw Hill Education to end its partnership with Proctorio after such a deal was made that would allow Proctorio to be used during homework sessions.

Vice revealed that Proctorio promoted its software with institutions that do not have contracts with them, such as Duke University, Baylor University, and Louisiana State University. The logos of such instituitions were removed, but not proactively.

In June 2020, the University of Amsterdam student council lost and subsequently appealed a lawsuit against Proctorio.

In September 2020, Proctorio sued Ian Linkletter, who criticized the software for increasing student anxiety, for copyright infringement. Linkletter shared the company’s instructional videos, which were later taken down from YouTube in the lead-up to the lawsuit. Linkletter spent more than CA$107,000 on defence, of which $50,000 was raised by supporters. Proctorio CEO Mike Olsen has argued that the lawsuit is solely tied to intellectual property concerns and not criticism of the company. Linkletter lost the lawsuit after appeal. The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear a further appeal.

Proctorio had also prevented Erik Johnson, an engineering student from Miami University, from using the software by means of blocking his IP address after he made posts that criticized the software on Twitter and shared the software's code on Pastebin. Both the posts and the code were removed after a takedown notice, but the posts were later restored. In April 2021, regarding this incident, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued Proctorio for its handling of the situation.

In 2022, Proctorio issued a subpoena against Fight for the Future in relation to the lawsuits against Johnson and Linkletter.

In response to these controversies, Proctorio has hired two auditors to help the company make its software better for people of color and people with disabilities. It is also working on a feedback system for those who have had unfavourable experiences.