Your College Is Watching You

By Nico Perrino

October 23, 2013  |  It monitors email and social media [3] accounts, uses thousands of surveillance [4] cameras to track behavior and movement, is funded by billions of dollars from the federal government, and has been called "the most authoritarian institution in America [5]".

The National Security Agency? Nope. It's your average college or university.

Earlier this year, when Harvard University violated school policy [6] by secretly searching deans' email accounts, the world glimpsed the intrusive measures one school took to monitor online activity of its staff. "We needed to act to protect our students," said then-dean [7] of Harvard College Evelynn Hammonds, who authorized the search in response to leaked information about a high-profile cheating scandal at the Ivy League institution.