Proctoring and data policy
In plain language: what exam checks watch, what they do not, what is kept, who can see it, and how to raise a concern.
Why this page exists
An exam can ask for a student’s camera, microphone and screen. Schools, parents and students deserve to know exactly what that means before a paper starts. This page is written for them. The full legal detail is in the privacy policy.
The five checks
- Camera: your teacher can see you while you write. Live only; not recorded.
- Microphone: your teacher can hear the room. Live only; not recorded.
- Screen sharing: your teacher can see your screen. Live only; not recorded. The paper asks for the entire screen.
- Full screen: the paper fills your screen. Leaving it is flagged.
- Block copy and paste: copying and pasting inside the paper is disabled; attempts are flagged.
A teacher turns each check on or off per paper. A quiz normally has none. Before a paper with checks opens, you are asked to allow each one by name, and told the warning rules. If you do not allow a check the paper asks for, the paper does not open.
What checks do not do
- They do not record anything. Camera, microphone and screen are shown live to your teacher and nowhere else, over a direct connection between your browser and theirs.
- They do not access anything outside the paper: no files, no other apps, no browsing history.
- They do not use face recognition, eye tracking, emotion detection or any automated judgement about behaviour.
- They do not run outside a paper. When you hand in, or the paper ends, your browser releases the camera and microphone.
- They do not lock your computer. Leaving is flagged, not prevented.
Watching the room
Watching is something your teacher switches on, on the Live page, for a paper that asked for the camera or screen. It shows the class as a grid of live cameras; clicking a student lets the teacher hear them and see their screen. Nothing is stored. If a school network blocks the direct connection, the picture simply does not arrive; your answers keep saving either way.
Flags and warnings
A flag is a short record that something happened, with the time: leaving full screen, switching tabs or windows, a copy-paste attempt, or the camera or screen sharing stopping. You are told on screen when it happens. Your teacher can set a number of warnings after which your paper is handed in automatically; you are told that number before you start. Flags appear in your teacher’s live view and in the PDF of your paper. They are the only thing kept from a check.
Who can see what
- Your teacher sees the live room, the flags, your answers and your marks.
- Your school, if your teacher is on a school sign-up code, can see the same through its administrator.
- You see your own answers, hand-in time and, when released, your marks and the flags on your own paper.
- Classmates see a scoreboard on a quiz where the teacher turned it on, and anything written in the room chat.
- MeritCount staff see data only to fix a problem or answer a support request. We never sell it, never advertise, and never use it to profile students.
Fairness
A flag is not evidence of misconduct. Connections drop, laptops sleep, siblings walk in. Flags exist so a teacher can see what happened and ask, not so a student can be judged by a timestamp. We ask every school using MeritCount to adopt that reading, and our terms require it.
Raising a concern
Speak to your teacher or school first; they control the paper and its data. Anyone can also write to hello@meritcount.com. Privacy requests are answered within 30 days, and complaints can be taken to the Data Protection Board of India or, where the GDPR applies, your local data protection authority.