Three things you need to know about AI “detectors”

Grey background with AI written in white in large letters in the centre of the image

Instructors may not submit student material to AI Detectors: Terms and Conditions require ownership over the intellectual property that is submitted; Students own their IP, not instructors​.

  • Douglas College – Freedom of Information & Protection of Privacy act [FIPPA]
  • Terms and Conditions from Copyleaks AI detector
    • “By accessing and/or using the site or services for any purpose whatsoever, you agree to the collection and use of any information or documents uploaded to the site or services, in addition to the collection of your personal information, all in accordance with these terms and under our privacy policy. Unless you delete any uploaded documents from Copyleaks’ servers in accordance with our privacy policy, we reserve the right to keep such uploaded documents in a data-base and use such documents for all purposes listed in our privacy policy.”

Student work may not be submitted to AI detectors without their consent: Students have the right to know if their material is being submitted to a third-party (who may profit off their IP) and the right to withhold consent (Rosenfeld v. McGill, 2004)​.

  • At Douglas College, you are required to get consent from a student before submitting their work to any third-party site that has not been properly vetted.
  • Students must be able to opt out without penalty.

“Detectors” don’t work as advertised: Open AI recently admitted this by pulling its own “detector”; Beware of the “Appeal to Statistics” Fallacy


© 2023 Janette Tilley and Nathan Hall. This document is Creative Commons licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

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