Date of response: 03 July 2024
We have now considered your request of 10 June 2024 for the following information:
I'm writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) to ask that you please disclose to me the details of any social media monitoring software in use by the university, and used on the student population that is operational in your institution.
I'd specifically like to know:
Question 1. if the university uses any software or tools to "listen", "monitor", or "track" conversations, keywords, discussions, hashtags, group chats or social media activity of its student population or staff.
Our response:
Our social media management software, Sprout Social, has social 'listening' capabilities integrated within it to monitor public social media brand mentions, that is, to monitor posts which mention the University of East Anglia directly or tag us in posts.
We do not use any software or tools to listen, monitor or track targeted conversations, discussions, group chats or any other social media activity which does not mention or hashtag the University.
Question 2. If tools for this purpose have been used, I'd also like to know which tools, and for how long these systems have been in place.
Our response:
The University has used Sprout Social since August 2022 for monitoring of hashtags which directly mention the University.
Question 3. Whether this was in relation to climate, strike action, Palestine/Israel, or other protest action
I have some examples I'd like to ask about below, but if the university already knows which one it uses, and that it doesn't use any of the others for a fact, then please feel free not to search for them. If alternatively it isn't sure, I'd like a search for these company names in addition to other information please:
Dataminr
Geofeedia
Social Sentinal / Navigate360 Detect
Gaggle
Securly
GoGuardian
Cobwebs Technologies / Webloc
ZeroFox
Media Sonar
Palantir Technologies
Our response:
No, the monitoring was not in relation to climate, strike action, Palestine/Israel or other protest action specifically.
The University does not actively monitor specific terms, phrases or subject/content of social media posts, merely whether the University brand has been tagged or mentioned within a social media post.
We must point out, that should any social media post mention the University or tag us directly, and the post does mention climate, strike action and or Palestine/Israel then yes this would flag the mention to the University, but we do not actively seek to monitor such activity or topics on social media, and specific terms or search words are not monitored.
Question 4. I'd also like to know if the university is monitoring, is this outsourced, and if so please provide details of that.
Our response:
Sprout Social is a global social media management tool. It is not an in-house tool developed or maintained by the University of East Anglia (UEA), however it is used by University staff as necessary.