When Matthew Wolfsen, a student activist at Georgia Tech, asked the university for all its records on him, he got back two binders of documents.

Some of it was expected -- his high school transcript, for instance. He also found that administrators kept tabs on his political affiliation and a trip he took to Washington in July.

Wolfsen has since widely publicized these administrators’ emails about him -- including some from President G. P. Peterson -- which were unearthed in his records requests. He declared on Facebook that Georgia Tech had spied on him using taxpayer dollars.

While experts said in interviews that colleges and universities often rely on social media channels for the pulse of campus, they were unaware of any cases in which an institution had, in essence, profiled a student -- raising questions about the appropriateness of Georgia Tech’s social media practices.

All this information was pulled from public posts. The university did not answer questions about how much time Norris spends reviewing students’ social media, but said in its statement,

Monitoring of all Georgia Tech mentions in media and social media platforms represents a small part of the media relations team’s responsibilities.” Representatives did not answer specific questions posed by a reporter, including whether this type of tracking of students was a common practice.

Read the full article about student social media monitoring from Inside Higher Ed