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Commentary · Core reading

Good Proctor or “Big Brother”? Ethics of Online Exam Supervision Technologies

Simon Coghlan, Tim Miller, Jeannie Paterson

Philosophy & Technology 2021

In short

Exam supervision software raises questions of fairness, privacy, autonomy and trust. An essay weighs whether watching students this way is ethically defensible and suggests inquiries and review processes institutions may need to justify using it.

What it looked at

A moral philosophy essay on online exam supervision technologies, using ideas from AI ethics. It makes no empirical test and suggests governance and review steps for institutions.

What it means for teaching

Sets out ethical questions a department could work through when considering remote exam supervision, drawn from philosophical argument.

Limits

It is an argument, not a data study, so it does not measure harms or benefits.

Cited 310 times by other papers, as counted by OpenAlex in November 2026. A count measures attention, not quality.

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