DePaul University has become the latest Illinois university targeted under the state’s biometrics privacy law over online monitoring of students taking exams.
On March 3, attorney Brian K. Murphy, of the firm of Murray Murphy Moul & Basil, of Columbus, Ohio, filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against DePaul. The lawsuit claims the university violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), in the way it required students to take exams online.
Brian K. Murphy
| Murray Murphy Moul + Basil
The lawsuit seeks to expand the action to potentially include all students who took online exams at DePaul in the last five years. DePaul is located in Chicago.
The lawsuit centers on DePaul’s use on the online test proctoring service known as Respondus Monitor.
According to the complaint, DePaul uses the proctoring service, provided through a license with Respondus Inc. to monitor students taking tests remotely. Respondus is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, the system is used by “dozens of colleges and universities in Illinois.”
The complaint said the system uses artificial intelligence to monitor test-takers by means of “facial detection, motion, and lighting to analyze the student and examination environment,” to prevent cheating.
However, while the system uses facial recognition technology to analyze student biometric data, the complaint said DePaul implemented the system without first securing authorization from students, and without providing students with various notices concerning its use of the face-scanning technology, that are allegedly required by the BIPA law.
“… Prior to January 21, 2021, the terms of use that students must accept before using Respondus Monitor for DePaul exams say nothing about facial recognition, biometric identifiers, or biometric information, and do not disclose to student users that their biometric identifiers or biometric information will be captured, collected, analyzed, or disseminated to the student’s Institution,” the complaint said.
The complaint seeks unspecified damages of more than $50,000. Under the BIPA law, however, plaintiffs are allowed to seek damages of up to $1,000-$5,000 per violation. Individual violations can be defined as each time a user’s biometric identifiers are scanned.
Murphy helped to filed a similar class action under the BIPA law over online college exam proctoring against Northwestern University in Evanston.
A separate, but similar lawsuit brought by others has also been filed against a vendor supplying proctoring programs to Loyola University Chicago.