Security

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

From the Bruin: UCLA has been using a service to monitor social media posts since 2018 without significant public notice. The university was one of at least 37 colleges and universities identified in a recent investigation by the Dallas Morning News into the use of Social Sentinel, a service schools can use to monitor students’ public social media accounts for potential threats to campus safety. The company’s conflicting statements about the intent of the service, as well as some schools’ employment of its artificial intelligence technology to surveil student protests, raised concerns from both students and experts.

Other universities who have purchased contracts with Social Sentinel – which was renamed Detect earlier this year after being acquired by another company – include the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Texas at Dallas. Emailed communications from 2016 between UCLA administrators, UCLA staff and UCPD suggest the service may have also been used at UC Davis...

“There have been instances where monitoring using Social Sentinel resulted in UCLA’s Consultation & Response Team or Behavioral Intervention Team engaging with members of the UCLA community whose posts indicated they posed a risk of harm to themselves or others,” he said in the statement. “The university has then reached out to those individuals to provide resources and support.”

However, the university’s use of Detect still raises concerns among student activists...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2022/10/09/ucla-administrators-monitor-studentssocial-media-activity.

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