Course requiring students to use Examity

Yet it has been 2 days since this email has gone out and my professor has not retracted the statement on the course website that we will be using Examity.

I think your concerns are reasonable. But I think you should give your professor a few more days to react. Keep in mind that professors may get thousands of emails.

You could write at a later date:

Dear Prof.,

I appreciate your efforts to promote exam integrity, but I prefer not to use Examity because I am concerned this company might take my private data. Dean Whatsit said using Examity is discouraged. May I take the exam without this software?

Sincerely,

If you read my answer to this question you will see that I don’t have a fanatically pro-privacy view about such things. I do understand where your professor is coming from. On the other hand, I don’t think your objections are unreasonable. In fact they seem reasonable enough that I think emailing the professor to ask about this is quite appropriate, although by no means guaranteed to produce the outcome you want.

Here is a suggested draft email.

Dear Professor,

I am writing about the exam next week. I understand that you plan to require students taking the exam to use Examity. Were you aware of the recent guidelines from our college [insert links] and several of the other colleges at our school [insert links] strongly discouraging the use of Examity? The issue is that this service is highly problematic from the point of view of privacy and computer security, and moreover, is widely believed to be ineffective as it can be easily defeated in any number of ways by would-be cheaters, as documented, for example, here [add link].

Personally, I have several principled as well as practical objections to being required to install and run the Examity software on my home computer as a condition to being allowed to take the exam (I’d be happy to explain them in a follow-up email if that helps). Would you consider waiving this requirement or discussing an alternate arrangement that would allow me (and, ideally, all other students in the class) to take the exam without the use of this problematic service that even our campus administration disapproves of?

Just to be clear, I am an honest student and have no desire or intention to cheat.

Thanks,

user760900

If you can suggest a solution to your professor rather than just a problem you might get a better outcome. Do some evidence gathering and then email your professor ccing any other relevant people involved in the administration of this exam stating that you have serious concerns about the integrity of Examity and give your reasons. Then suggest an alternative. I do not know if Moodle's safe exam browser would be preferable to you (https://docs.moodle.org/38/en/Safe_exam_browser)?

If you are worried about sensitive files on your computer then create a new user account and do all your professional work including this exam from that account. If you are really worried then get hold of a different computer with factory settings restored or where it doesn't matter if worst comes to worst and you get full on hacked (for which I guess the risk is quite low anyway, no?)

Ask your colleagues taking the exam if they are also concerned and, if some of them share your concerns, send the email from all of you or if you have a representative get them to send the email stating that it is on behalf of x number of concerned students.