Emergency Motion on SEAtS

Goldsmiths ucu log

Passed at a quorate branch meeting on Weds 12 October

Emergency motion on SEAtS 

This Branch Notes

  1. That no guarantee that the SEAtS software is not sharing data with UKVI has been provided to GUCU or the SU in writing;
  2. That, as per their Privacy Policy, SEAtS may share / sell data with third party companies and organisations, that SEAtS tracks and collects data on students’ geolocation in real time, and may scrape users’ phone and social media accounts for data, including accessing and collecting personal photos and the contacts stored in a users’ mobile phones;
  3. That since the start of the year the SEAtS software has shown itself to be riddled with technical problems and is functionally not fit for purpose;
  4. That a previous motion of non-compliance with SEAtS was passed by GUCU in March 2019

This Branch Believes:

  1. That it is not appropriate to tie the monitoring of international students for Tier Four License purposes to systems which are designed to provide support (both learning and pastoral) to all students, including international students;
  2. That it is not appropriate for external companies to have access to student data, including data scraped from their photo libraries, social media accounts and phone contacts nor is it appropriate for this data to be shared with third party vendors;
  3. That the taking of registers is a system that must be limited to checking student attendance in order to provide learning or pastoral support. 
  4. That any other use of the taking of registers gravely undermines the trust that must exist between academic/professional staff and students in the provision of necessary support and discriminates against international students;
  5. That while we recognise that the College must meet its legal obligations for retaining its license to sponsor international students, it must do so in a way that disaggregates those processes from processes that are intended to provide students with support.

This Branch Resolves:

  1. For GUCU members to continue the practice of non-compliance with SEAtS until our concerns are fully addressed;
  2. To call on Goldsmiths to disaggregate the processes of collecting data for its Tier Four License from any students support systems, including the taking of registers;
  3. To call on Goldsmiths to meet with SU and GUCU representatives on this matter;
  4. To call on the Pro-Warden responsible for the roll out of SEAtS to share any reports from the Equalities Audit and Impact Assessment with GUCU and SU representatives and to consult fully with GUCU and the SU over any proposal to continue with the roll out of this system out across the university.