For activation of content an arbitrary user can be used. The method info.magnolia.cms.exchange.Syndicator.init(User, String, String, Rule) allows to pass the user to be used in the syndicator. However to update the activation details the user from the current web context is used. This is a problem if the current web user is not allowed to edit the metadata of an activated node.

I think the methods #updateActivationDetails and #updateDeactivationDetails in BaseSyndicatorImpl should use the system context instead of the current web context.