University students are raising concerns over proposed changes to Turnitin that could allow the essay-checking platform to use student submissions to improve its artificial intelligence tools.
Students’ representatives have questioned how their work and personal data would be handled, as well as whether students can genuinely give consent when submitting essays is a mandatory part of their assessment. Concerns also centre on ownership and intellectual property rights.
Turnitin has said the proposed changes will not take effect before September 2027, giving universities time to review the plans. The company says student work is not used to train its AI assistant, while anonymised submissions may be used to improve its detection and assessment technologies.
The debate comes as universities increasingly rely on AI-powered systems to detect plagiarism and assess academic work, raising broader questions about privacy, data ownership and the role of AI in education.
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