Update 06/10/2026: Turnitin have issued the following statement:
"In response to concerns raised by UK and Irish universities and colleges, which have been channelled through UCISA, Turnitin postponed the issue of a new End-User Licence Agreement (EULA) until September 2027. Turnitin have also committed to redrafting the EULA and will work in partnership with UCISA who represent educational institutions across the UK to address any concerns and clarify key questions.
Turnitin has confirmed that no student or staff data has been used to develop any generative artificial intelligence (AI) models or large language models (LLM), and that they have no plans to use student essays in this way.
Turnitin recognise the growing concerns around data privacy and AI. They are therefore fully committed to the collective work that they are engaged with through the UCISA representation group and their institutional members. This working partnership demonstrates Turnitin’s commitment to protecting student and staff data."
Update 23/07/2026:
Turnitin have confirmed there will be no EULA updates during the 26/27 Academic year.
Original post 23/07/2026:
You may have heard that Turnitin was preparing to launch an update to its End User License Agreement (EULA) on Tuesday, 14 July. This update introduced new terms regarding the processing of student submissions using AI tools, raising significant questions across the UK higher education sector regarding data privacy and institutional contracts.
Following swift and coordinated intervention from sector bodies on Monday, Turnitin has made the decision to pause the rollout of the new EULA.
Turnitin will be using the next 60 days to work in collaboration with customer institutions to thoroughly address outstanding questions and provide greater confidence in any future changes. This gives our internal teams in Educational Enhancement, IT Services, and Data Protection the necessary time to fully investigate the technical and contractual implications for Sussex ahead of the next academic year.
We will keep you informed as our investigations progress and as soon as further information becomes available. In the meantime, you and your students can continue to use Turnitin as normal through A3 and PGT dissertation completion.
This is separate to the upcoming submission process changes, more of which will communicated in the next week or two.