Ian Linkletter

Presenting the Pledge Against Academic Surveillance

https://pledge.againstsurveillance.net

“I will do everything in my power to obstruct, work against, and end academic surveillance technologies and their harm against students.”

Join me in taking a stand #AgainstSurveillance

#AgainstSurveillance: Pledge against Academic Surveillance – Just another WordPress site

Jul 24, 2023 at 4:34pmWeb
Show threadJane AdamsJul 24, 2023

@Linkletter Would love if this had an "about" page - examples of surveillance, what expectations are related to signing the pledge, orgs behind the pledge's creation, how accountability is measured, types of surveillance (cameras, heat sensors, reading emails, social media monitoring, geolocation), and specific subgroups affected

Some motivating examples:
Northeastern: https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7gwy3/no-grad-students-analyze-hack-and-remove-under-desk-surveillance-devices-designed-to-track-them
Northeastern again: https://nugradunion.com/news/important-genu-uaw-files-unfair-labor-practice-charge-against-northeastern-admins/

CMU http://thetartan.org/2019/11/18/news/sensors-cmu

UC: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/10/cmqq-j10.html

‘NO’: Grad Students Analyze, Hack, and Remove Under-Desk Surveillance Devices Designed to Track Them

In October, the university quietly introduced heat sensors under desk without notifying students or seeking their consent. Students removed the devices, hacked them, and were able to force the university to stop its surveillance.

Show threadJane AdamsJul 24, 2023
@Linkletter In particular, something we found particularly egregious at Northeastern was that while our IoT and security and privacy labs are required (as they should be) to go through a lengthy IRB approval process for human subjects research, the university had no such purview for their monitoring b/c "we're not doing science here". Also, the tech used 1) disrupted research by adding interference in lab data, and 2) was quickly hacked by students, demonstrating vulnerability of personal data
Show threadRenkeSiemsJul 25, 2023

@janeadams @Linkletter You can find some - not very motivating - examples here:

https://stoptrackingscience.eu/

Stop Tracking Science

Show threadAndrea TitoloJul 25, 2023

@janeadams Agreed, something a là https://thecostofknowledge.com would provide more context.

I’ll admit I am ignorant on active surveillance practices by Universities (thanks for the links above), but at first I thought this was a pledge against the use of surveillance capitalism technologies and services in education 😅

@Linkletter

Show threadJane AdamsJul 25, 2023

@andreatitolo @Linkletter Hmm I can't seem to access that link..

But yes after reading more about the work of folks who shared this, it seems more like the original impetus was surveillance EdTech like invasive proctoring tools and highly fallible plagiarism detectors. All the more reason to disambiguate!

Show threadIan LinkletterJul 25, 2023

@janeadams @andreatitolo The Pledge Against Academic Surveillance was announced during my keynote at Reclaim Open Online 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sswlH4TQ4cc

This should provide some additional context. Sorry it wasn't there yet!

Ian Linkletter: A Pledge Against Surveillance

We are honored to have edtech’s patron saint of resisting student surveillance, Ian Linkletter, joining us to discuss the role of ethical edtech. As many of ...

YouTube
Show threadrspJul 25, 2023
@Linkletter Cant sign on to something that isnt explained.