Proctorio is one of several companies that make software designed to monitor students during test-taking sessions. As such, students and universities trust it to maintain the utmost privacy and data security standards.
Back in July, during a fit of pique, Proctorio CEO Mike Olsen decided to post on Reddit a partial transcript of a chat session with a student,
The chief executive of an exam monitoring software firm that has raised privacy concerns in Australia has apologised for publicly posting a student’s chat logs during an argument on the website Reddit.
Mike Olsen, who is the CEO of the US-based Proctorio, has since deleted the posts and apologised, saying that he and Proctorio “take privacy very seriously”.
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On Friday, an anonymous student at the University of British Columbia in Canada posted on Reddit that a Proctorio support person had gone “MIA [missing in action]” after they messaged with a technical issue during an exam.
Olsen – posting under the Reddit username artfulhacker – then responded with sections of that student’s chat log, saying they had “lied”.
“If you’re gonna lie bro… don’t do it when the company clearly has an entire transcript of your conversation,” he wrote.
“You even gave Roy [the support person] a positive emoji after he helped you.. shame on you.”
Olsen then posted a partial transcript of that student’s conversation with the support person. He also commented: “I was furious we would leave a student hanging before an exam, but my team quickly pointed me to the transcript and I just had to jump in.” The artfulhacker account has previously posted identifying itself as the CEO of Proctorio.
This is a bizarre abrogation of the company’s duties toward students. The last thing anyone needs is a company whose CEO posts private, confidential information on Reddit because he’s butthurt over a student’s negative comments about the company.