There are reasons to be suspicious. I don't work at a university, and recently we were asked to complete a survey and give our thoughts on the organisation - by email. Does it surprise you that I didn't comply, even though they claimed our responses would be treated confidentially?

It's reasonable to be worried about anonymity - there are many stories of university staff, academics particularily, being punished for voicing their opinions. If you've ever seen some of these people battle for who gets the big room at the end of the corridor, you'll have a pretty good idea of how nasty it could get if somebody leaked survey results. Anyway, the single computer (or maybe access from the public labs) sounds like a great idea. We have ballot booths for a similar reason, and nobody criticises them, do they?

As an example of how people can get the idea of intrusive computers, my friend reported an experience that left him a little shaken. He had stayed back late studying in a computer lab. His mother rang the university to find out where he was. The guards checked the access logs to the buildings and rooms, found him on the video camera monitors, then called the phone in the room and put his mother through when he answered. I just can't imagine where people get these big brother ideas from. Nope. Not at all...

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Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.