Distance education students will soon need to accept having spy cameras in their homes. The chronicle of higher education reports "Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students' homes."
The idea is to avoid cheating by students when they turn in assignments or take tests from home or anywhere else other than a room with a proctor in it. The technologies are meant to identify the student and assure that an impersonator cannot substitute himself for a student in the middle of a crucial activity such as taking a test. The technologies are meant to work by collecting students' fingerprints, and possibly even images from inside their homes.
Although it sounds pretty Orwellian, I guess this is a small price to pay for students who want to fit in a credible education into their busy working lives. At any rate if this bill becomes a law, a huge new opportunity will open up for vendors pushing such technologies.
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