In July 2026, Turnitin proposed changes to allow  students' submissions to be used for the development of AI tools. The proposal has since been paused until September 2027 after intervention from higher education sector bodies, but the attempt raises questions over how students' own work and intellectual property may be repurposed in an era of AI development. 

For students, submitting an essay to Turnitin is usually the final step of an assignment. You upload the document, click submit, and move on. But this year, that seemingly routine process became the centre of a much larger question: what happens to that essay after it leaves your computer? 

Turnitin proposed changes to its End User Licence Agreement (EULA) that would allow the company to use student submissions, in aggregated, anonymised and/or de-identified form, for improving or developing unspecified AI tools and other products, features, or services. The proposed terms also covered instructor content, including assignment information, feedback, comments, grades and rubrics.

The proposal triggered concerns across the higher education sector about data privacy, institutional contracts and how student work could be used beyond the assessment for which it was originally submitted. 

Turnitin later confirmed that there would be no EULA updates during the 2026–27 academic year. But the issue has not disappeared. One university, The University of Southampton has announced that it will not renew its Turnitin contract beyond the end of the 2026–27 academic year due to Turnitin’s confirmation that it still intended to revisit them next year. 

Students Retain Ownership?

Turnitin does not own  students’ essays under the current agreement. Their current EULA states that students retain ownership of their submitted papers, subject to the license granted to Turnitin and its affiliates, vendors, service providers and licensors. 

At the same time, students grant Turnitin a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide and irrevocable license” to use submitted papers, feedback and results for improving the quality of its services generally. 

The Company Detecting AI is Also Developing AI 

The timing of the proposal is particularly significant. Since the arrival of generative AI, universities have increasingly turned to software such as Turnitin to identify potentially AI-generated writing.

At the University of Melbourne, Turnitin remains part of the assessment infrastructure. Turnitin’s AI Writing Report analyses a student’s submission through an algorithm which is designed to highlight passages that appear to have potentially been generated by AI or subsequently paraphrased using an AI tool.

The university’s guidance says the AI Writing Score does not indicate whether a student has committed academic misconduct. 

The university also says staff should review Turnitin’s guidance about the limitations of the detection technology before considering an AI Writing Score. A Turnitin score is designed to identify writing that the software considers likely to have involved AI. It is not, according to Melbourne’s own guidance, a finding of misconduct. 

At Melbourne, the Concerns are Familiar 

The proposed EULA changes come as the University of Melbourne continues to use Turnitin’s AI detection tool, despite concerns about its reliability raised by students, tutors and UMSU Advocacy earlier this year. 

In Farrago’s previous investigation, one student described being accused of academic misconduct after Turnitin reported that more than 50 per cent of their essay was AI-generated. The allegation was later dropped. The student said they were left “stressed, distraught and confused” by the process. 

The University has maintained that Turnitin’s AI report cannot establish misconduct on its own. Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Gregor Kennedy previously told Farrago that the report “alone is not a sufficient basis for an allegation of misconduct”, while UMSU Advocacy said it did not consider the detector reliable enough to independently raise concerns about academic integrity. 

For Melbourne students, the company remains embedded in the assessment process while universities elsewhere reconsider their contracts with it. The issue therefore comes back to the same system examined by Farrago earlier this year surrounding a platform whose AI detection technology can wrongly trigger scrutiny of students’ work, and whose proposed terms may  expand how that work could be used.

Image source: Student Edge