What we found
Proctorio Exam Surveillance: DProctorio's AI decides you're cheating if you look away from the screen, fidget, or have dark skin in a poorly lit room.
Proctorio's AI flags "suspicious" behaviour including looking away from the screen, having a messy room, having dark skin (causing lighting algorithm failures), and fidgeting — all of which disproportionately affect students with disabilities, people of colour, and those in small living spaces. Multiple studies found the AI flagged Black and brown students at higher rates due to facial detection bias.
Google Classroom: DGoogle told schools it would not use student data for ads.
A 2022 FTC complaint by EFF and other groups alleged Google tracked students' browsing across non-educational Google services (YouTube, Maps, Search) and used the data to build advertising profiles. New Mexico's Attorney General sued Google in 2020 for collecting personal data from children under 13 through Chromebooks and Google Education tools without parental consent.
Gaggle Safety Management: DGaggle reads every email and Google Doc students write at school.
A New York Times investigation found Gaggle monitors the emails, Google Docs, and chat messages of millions of students, flagging content containing keywords related to suicide, violence, drugs, and sexuality. LGBTQ+ students were disproportionately flagged because their private communications about identity and relationships triggered the keyword filters. Some students were outed to parents and school administrators.
LockDown Browser & Monitor: DRespondus takes total control of your computer.
LockDown Browser takes complete control of the student's computer: disabling screenshots, screen recording, copy-paste, alt-tab, task manager, and all other applications. Respondus Monitor adds webcam recording that captures the student's face and environment throughout the exam. Students have reported being unable to exit the software after completing exams, requiring hard reboots.
Canvas LMS: DBreached twice in 8 months.
ShinyHunters breached Canvas LMS in April-May 2026, claiming 3.65TB of data from 8,809 institutions including Harvard, MIT, and Oxford. This was the second breach in 8 months — the first was September 2025. Exposed names, emails, student IDs, and billions of private messages. 404 Media called it "the biggest student data privacy disaster in history."