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Good practice Imported

TestWe E-Proctoring — Montreuil Court Suspends Facial-Recognition Exam Surveillance at Paris 8's Distance-Learning Institute

France · Saint-Denis · See the France profile · See the Saint-Denis profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Students at Paris 8's distance-learning institute, backed by La Quadrature du Net, challenged TestWe's facial-recognition exam proctoring. On 31 March 2023 the Montreuil administrative court ordered its suspension, ruling continuous body and sound surveillance disproportionate.

3 seconds
Photo-capture interval during exams

Details

Maturity
Discontinued
Promoter
Institut d'enseignement à distance (IED), Université Paris 8; case brought with La Quadrature du Net
Period
2020 – 31 March 2023
Region (NUTS)
FR10
Keywords
Higher education, exam proctoring, biometric surveillance, academic integrity

Context

The Institut d'enseignement à distance (IED) of Université Paris 8, whose courses are delivered entirely remotely, required students to sit exams using the TestWe proctoring platform, which photographed students automatically every three seconds, tracked eye movements, and analysed video and audio of their surroundings for 'suspicious behaviour', while requiring students to disable firewalls and antivirus software during exams.

Objectives

Deter and detect cheating during remote, unsupervised exams for a distance-learning institute.

Activities

Students challenged the practice with support from digital-rights group La Quadrature du Net, arguing the surveillance failed the GDPR's data-minimisation requirement and was disproportionate to the goal of preventing cheating.

Results

On 31 March 2023, the administrative court in Montreuil issued an interim ruling ordering IED to suspend use of TestWe, finding that 'permanent surveillance of bodies and sounds' inside students' own homes was unreasonable and excessive for exam-integrity purposes.

Conclusions

The ruling is a documented judicial finding against this specific deployment, evidencing a governance and proportionality failure rather than a successful practice; no positive learning, equity, or capability-building outcomes are claimed or evidenced in the record.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Institut d'enseignement à distance (IED), Université Paris 8, TestWe (vendor), La Quadrature du Net (supporting students' legal challenge)

Conditions for success

  • Compliance with the GDPR data-minimisation principle
  • Proportionality between surveillance intensity and the cheating risk being addressed
  • Respect for the privacy of students' home environments during remote exams

Common failure modes

  • Continuous audio/video surveillance of students' homes found disproportionate by the court
  • Requirement to disable firewalls/antivirus software during exams, a security and privacy risk
  • No data-minimisation safeguards, which enabled a successful legal challenge

Where it fits

Governance type
single public university institute, challenged via administrative court
Scale
single institution (distance-learning institute)
Income level
high-income (France)

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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