Sign the petition to stop universities from using parasitic spyware!

University Administrations

Universities are being pressured to surveil students and researchers with invasive spyware. This spyware would collect and sell their biometric and browsing data whenever they access an academic article.

To access academic articles, universities historically have paid a subscription fee to corporate academic publishers. The systems maintained by these large corporations are difficult to use and expensive, which has led to academics creating their own repositories where information is free and accessible to all. These free repositories are preferred by many, eroding the profits of academic publishing conglomerates.

Most academic articles are funded by taxpayers, and academic publishers operate by leeching off this research taxpayers pay for. In 2018, one publisher charged the University of California $11 million for access to scientific journals.

This lucrative business model is one that academic publishers are going to creepy lengths to maintain. They are using scare-mongering arguments to demand that universities downgrade the security of their digital libraries to surveil everyone who accesses academic articles.

Let’s break it down:

  1. Academic publishers want to offer discounts to universities that install spyware to creep on anyone who accesses academic articles.

  2. The spyware will save all data on research done using academic articles. It will also collect biometric data, removing the anonymity of the researcher. Anonymity is a necessity for academic freedom.

  3. The data the spyware collects will then be sold on the open market to the highest bidder, including law enforcement, creating another revenue stream for academic publishers and their security company partners alike.

At its core, this proposal is a data-grab, turning detailed information on academics into a product for purchase, and undermining the missions of institutions of higher learning worldwide. Even if we take academic publishers at their word that more must be done to protect universities from bad actors or insecure databases, it is beyond obvious that mass, monetized surveillance of academic researchers is not the solution.

Tell universities: no spyware!

PETITION TEXT

Academic publishers offer a subpar experience at an exorbitant price, selling research that is often publicly-funded with a 40% profit margin. Now, these large corporations are seeking to destroy the academic freedom of the institutions that are their customers.

I call upon universities to reject any attempts to install spyware, monitoring software, or any other means of tracking which articles people access, and/or the biometric details of anyone in the university system. Such spyware poses a fundamental threat to academic freedom, especially when both the substantive and biometric data of a library user could be sold to the highest bidder, or provided to law enforcement.


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To: University Administrations
From: [Your Name]

Dear University Administrators,

Academic publishers offer a subpar experience at an exorbitant price, selling research that is often publicly-funded with a 40% profit margin. Now, these large corporations are seeking to destroy the academic freedom of the institutions that are their customers.

I call upon universities to reject any attempts to install spyware, monitoring software, or any other means of tracking which articles people access, and/or the biometric details of anyone in the university system. Such spyware poses a fundamental threat to academic freedom, especially when both the substantive and biometric data of a library user could be sold to the highest bidder, or provided to law enforcement.

Thank you.