Your Disgruntled Lecturer decided to get a tablet computer to use for work. After all, reading papers, marking essays , responding to emails, etc. should be more convenient this way, right? So following this train of thought (s)he decided to connect the device to the work email and calendar. And here came a surprise! In order to do that, Degree Farm requires the user to grant the following privileges to the university:
- access to all the resources and files on the device,
- the right to delete and edit any content on the device,
- the right to reset the device settings at any time (it sounds outrageous but it could be justified by data security in some exceptional circumstances)
The points that can't be justified are :
- access to the device's camera and picture gallery,
- access to the voice recording (both without the users knowledge!),
- access to the device's keyboard and other input methods,
- access to the device's location,
- access to personal passwords.
This sounds outrageous, doesn't it? Stasi-like? NSA and GCHQ , I think you can learn from Degree Farm! At least they have a decency to ask for one's consent...
(What makes it worse is that most of our colleagues did have no idea, including your Disgruntled Lecturer on their mobile phone) .
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