Cambly, AI and Privacy

Welcome to my Cambly Blog.   It’s been a little while since I posted and I wanted to get a few updates in this month so here we go!!

Cambly has been busy lately adding several updates to the tutor experience. My favorite is the new pen software, I can now draw a circle that actually looks like a circle!!  My least favorite is the AI to help with prompts for students. Initially I thought it was OK, but It’s just bad. In fact it’s like ChatGPT’s younger idiotic brother and should be avoided at all costs!  Pro Tip. Open up a second tab with ChatGPT  and you can use it to help with your classes.

Talking of AI, let’s get to the reason for this new post. Cambly now has an AI generated summary for your classes. If you go to your history and click on ‘lesson’ it will give you a summary of that class and while that sounds like a great idea, a lot of tutors on Facebook Cambly Corner are not pleased. In fact some of them are pretty angry to the point of complaining about Cambly watching them. To be honest, I can see why some people might have an issue with this, but ALL tutors sign a tutor agreement before teaching on the platform and the following is a part of it.

• Cambly may monitor, record, and retain the interactions between and among Students, Tutors, and automated chatbots on the Platform (“Sessions”), including any audio, video, or text. You hereby consent to: (i) the monitoring, recording, and retention of any Session you engage in, which may include your voice, image, and communications (“Recordings”); (ii) Cambly storing and making use of such Recordings for its own internal business purposes, including without limitation for purposes of Tutor evaluation, Tutor training, dispute resolution, and improving the Platform and services available through it; (iii) such Recordings being made available to the parties in a Recording (e.g., Students and Tutors) and their legal guardians (e.g., parents of a minor Student); (v) such Recordings being used or disclosed by Cambly to the extent required by law or legal process or to the extent Cambly deems necessary for purposes of enforcing or protecting its rights or the rights of a third party; and (vi) as you otherwise agree (including, for Tutors, as set forth in the Tutor Addendum).

C’mon people you’ve agreed to Cambly basically recording you and using your image and voice for anything they want, yet you’re surprised and annoyed that they are using AI to get a summary of your class??!!

You agreed to being watched, you agreed to being recorded, you waived your right to privacy on the platform. So in all honesty, I’m kinda baffled as to why some people are in such an uproar. Maybe it’s because  it now seems more visible to tutors?

I think this is probably here to stay. As tutors, we don’t have much of a voice on the platform. But the paying students? Now that’s a different matter, if there’s a similar student summary and the students don’t like it, it may be a different issue altogether.

“The only way to maintain privacy on the internet is to not be on the internet.”  Abhijit Naskar

Until next time. Alice.