Things we will never build.

A camera makes every student a subject of surveillance, and every bedroom, face, and nervous habit becomes data. Lab exams already have an invigilator present. If a student needs to be watched, a person can do that with judgement and context, and without producing a recording that outlives the exam.

When the network permits only the exam’s sites, the screen holds nothing worth recording. A recording would capture everything a student typed, tried, and deleted. It would then need to be stored, protected, and eventually reviewed. Stopping the problem at the network is the cleaner approach.

Keystrokes amount to a transcript of someone’s thinking, including passwords and half-formed ideas. Whatever they reveal about rule-following, a network log reveals more directly and without capturing everything a person typed in the process.

The reasoning is the same as for the camera. A lab exam takes place in a room with other people present. Audio would capture them too, and they have not agreed to any recording.

Automated flagging systems have a documented record of misreading darker skin, disability, anxiety, and ordinary fidgeting, and their flags tend to be treated as findings. SafeExamOS reports facts: this seat requested this hostname at this time, and the request was blocked. A person interprets what that means.

Identity verification works the way it always has in a lab: a seat, a roster, and an invigilator. Biometric data is among the hardest categories to protect, and it cannot be changed once it is compromised.

Students look away from the screen when they think; measuring this adds stress and reveals nothing about the exam itself.

SafeExamOS runs on lab machines that the institution owns and manages. Requiring students to grant exam software deep access to a personal laptop is a different arrangement, and one this system is not designed to make.

Request logs remain with the institution that ran the exam. They are not aggregated across customers, used to train models, or sold in any derived form.

Collecting answers centrally would be convenient, but it would make SafeExamOS a party to every answer and suggest that the system acts on behalf of the student. SafeExamOS secures the environment; the student does the exam.

CodeChef, DOMjudge, Moodle, and similar platforms already handle this well. SafeExamOS makes a lab safe for using them. Remaining outside the grading process keeps this system outside disputes about marks.

A secured lab eliminates most opportunities to cheat; it does not eliminate the need for a person who can answer questions, notice a student who is unwell, or manage a power failure. That person is better deployed helping students than watching screens.

A blocked page states that the site is not permitted and points back to the list. The timer does not turn red. Students under time pressure benefit from calm, plain language, and most blocked requests are typos.