This is the message they are sending to users:

Hey u/username,

We will soon begin rolling out changes to Reddit’s User settings. It is getting a refresh that includes changes to ad personalization, privacy preferences, and location settings.

As part of these changes, we are retiring a setting that you have previously turned on that limited how we used your activity from the Reddit platform to personalize ads. We have replaced the setting with a new option to select categories of ads that you may not wish to see.

More details are available in our announcement and help center.

These changes are rolling out starting today and you may see the changes over the next few days.

On Android just use Brave browser and turn on the setting to allow tabs to play media in the background. Opera does the same thing.

Not sure what iOS options there are.

Seriously email your IT and/or privacy team at the university level. I work at a university and that would be removed ASAP for sharing PII. If you’re in the US or UK it’s a major violation of your privacy. Unfortunately most IT offices aren’t involved in many of the decisions and many of the people making those decisions are complete ignorant to the situation.