ExamSoft Flags One-Third of California Bar Exam Test Takers For Cheating

The California Bar released data last week confirming that during its use of ExamSoft for the October Bar exam, over one-third of the nearly nine-thousand online examinees were flagged by the software. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is concerned that the exam proctoring software is incorrectly flagging students for cheating "due either to the software's technical failures or to its requirements that students have relatively new computers and access to near-broadband speeds." From the report: This is outrageous. It goes without saying that of the 3,190 applicants flagged by the software, the vast majority were not cheating. Far more likely is that, as EFF and others have said before, remote proctoring software is surveillance snake oil -- you simply can't replicate a classroom environment online, and attempting to do so via algorithms and video monitoring only causes harm. In this case, the harm is not only to the students who are rightfully upset about the implications and the lack of proper channels for redress, but to the institution of the Bar itself. While examinees have been searching for help from other examinees as well as hiring legal counsel in their attempt to defend themselves from potentially baseless claims of cheating, the California Committee of Bar Examiners has said "everything is going well" and called these results "a good thing to see" (13:30 into the video of the Committee meeting). That is not how we see it. These flags have triggered concern for hundreds, if not thousands, of test takers, most of whom had no idea that they were flagged until recently. Many only learned about the flag after receiving an official "Chapter 6 Notice" from the Bar, which is sent when an applicant is observed (supposedly) violating exam conduct rules or seen or heard with prohibited items, like a cell phone, during the exam. In a depressingly ironic introduction to the legal system, the Bar has requested that students respond to the notices within 10 days, but it would appear that none of them have been given enough information to do so, as Chapter 6 Notices contain only a short summary of the violation. These summaries are decidedly vague: "Facial view of your eyes was not within view of the camera for a prolonged period of time"; "No audible sound was detected"; "Leaving the view of the webcam outside of scheduled breaks during a remote-proctored exam." Examinees do not currently have access to the flagged videos themselves, and are not expected to receive access to them, or any other evidence against them, before they are required to submit a response. The report goes on to say that some of these flags are technical issues with ExamSoft. For example, Lenovo laptops appear to have been flagged en masse for an issue with the software's inability to access the internal microphone. Other flags are likely due to the inability of the software to correctly recognize the variability of examinees' demeanors and expressions. "We implore the California Bar to rethink its plans for remotely-proctored future exams, and to work carefully to offer clearer paths for examinees who have been flagged by these inadequate surveillance tools," the EFF says in closing. "Until then, the Bar must provide examinees who have been flagged with a fair appeals process, including sharing the videos and any other information necessary for them to defend themselves before requiring a written response."

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