Honorlock

Honorlock is an online remote proctoring service that allows students to take exams remotely. When the nature of the course or instruction makes online proctoring a necessity, your instructor may require you to take exams through Honorlock.

Ensure your computer is charged and has a strong internet connection. You can check your system at honorlock.com/support. Make sure to use Google Chrome when you log in to take your test. It is recommended that students take their exams in a quiet private location to limit potential flags and distractions. Make sure you are wearing proper attire.

Sit at a clear desk or table (not on a bed or couch). Lighting in the room must be bright enough to be considered “daylight” quality. Overhead lighting is preferred; however, if overhead is not possible, the light source should not be behind the student. Do not have a radio or a television playing in the background. Be sure the desk or table is cleared of all other materials. This means removing all books, papers, notebooks, calculators, cellphones, etc. unless specifically permitted in posted guidelines for that particular examination.

Honorlock verifies the photo and name on your ID to ensure you are the correct test taker. Your government ID that has an image of the test-taker and their name on it will work to confirm and document that the student that is supposed to take the exam is the student that authenticates into and completes the exam.

Honorlock offers technical support 24/7 to assist students before, during, and after their proctored tests. If you need any assistance, contact their support agents via live chat.

If you are being prompted for an access code you are most likely not in Google Chrome, or you do not have the Honorlock Chrome Extension.

You will need to have a working webcam, microphone, and either a laptop or desktop computer.

Honorlock is FERPA compliant and uses securely encrypted protocols to save and view all test taker assets. Faculty are able to review test session videos until deleted.

Honorlock is VPAT certified and fully accessible to students with special needs. Additionally, Honorlock works with screen readers if needed.

When you are no longer in view of your webcam while taking an exam, using artificial intelligence (AI), Honorlock will briefly pause your exam session. Once you refocus your face within the webcam, the AI will automatically resume your exam session where you had previously left off (~3 seconds when the student’s face is in frame). To avoid this, it is recommended that you remain in front of the webcam if you need to write out your answers/work; if you move or shift and are no longer focused, your exam screen will pause momentarily until your reposition your face in front of the webcam again. Please also refrain from vaping to ensure the camera remains focused on your face.

No. Honorlock simply reports back possible incidents to the instructor. Ultimately, your instructor determines if any violations occurred by viewing the video recording.

No. Honorlock will never sell or monetize your data. CACC’s agreement with Honorlock for online test proctoring does not allow Honorlock to sell student information to third parties. Our contract with Honorlock has specific legal requirements for protecting student information that supersedes Honorlock’s standard Terms of Service (publicly available on their website) and binds Honorlock to all of the protections supplied by FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).

Only CACC personnel with a legitimate educational interest in the records may have access to student data. Also, key staff at Honorlock will have access, if needed, in order to provide quality control and support to CACC users. These individuals are bound to the FERPA and privacy requirements required by the CACC/Honorlock service agreement.

Honorlock retains data for 12 months. Student data is deleted after the 12-month retention period. Only a request by a student’s educational institution will extend the retention period if the school is investigating a case of academic integrity.

Honorlock collects a variety of information such as Student information (e.g. student name, course number, exam name. You will be asked to provide a copy of a photo ID). This information is synced with CACC’s learning management system (i.e., Canvas). You may be asked to upload a photo taken with the camera on your device and to do a scan using the webcam of your testing area. During the exam, Honorlock may collect a webcam video recording that includes desktop activity and audio recording. Exam and web pages visited by a student during an examination.

Honorlock uses only a Chrome browser extension that uses AI to detect the presence of faces in your camera and different voices. A student will have to install the browser extension to take an examination. The student can immediately delete the browser extension following the examination. Honorlock does not have the ability to control your computer, read your passwords or download any files at any point in time. Honorlock does not have access or the ability to control secondary devices such as mobile phones.

Honorlock is only proctoring your examinations via the Chrome browser extension. You are free to delete the Chrome browser extension immediately following an exam. However, the extension will not track any activity or record any data unless you are taking an exam and logged into Canvas. When the Honorlock extension is active, there is a flashing red indicator on the extension. If this indicator is not being shown, you can trust that nothing is actively being monitored or recorded during that time. If you still have concerns, we recommend creating a new Google Chrome person or profile to complete your testing with Honorlock. This will create a fresh version of the Google Chrome browser free of all data and when finished, you can simply remove the extension. This can easily be accomplished by right-clicking on the extension and selecting “Remove from Chrome.”

Honorlock does not scan home networks or monitor data from any device on the network other than the one used for testing. Secondary devices, such as phones, can be detected, but this is not accomplished by network snooping. See the questions below for more detailed information about how Honorlock tracks and monitors data and devices.

Honorlock does not access the test-taker’s network nor does it, in any way, monitor or access any secondary devices that are on the test-taker’s network. Honorlock does monitor the quality of the internet connection of the specific test-taking device to ensure the quality of and to document the network connection stability during the test-taking experience. This helps to address and troubleshoot situations where the test-takers internet connection becomes unstable during the test-taking experience. For a complete description of how Honorlock’s secondary device detection works, the patent information can be found here and on the Honorlock Patent Info for Multi-Device Detection.

Honorlock does not ‘intercept’ searches, nor control or interrupt any network/internet traffic from any secondary devices at any time. Honorlock also does not ‘replace’ search results; it has no more control over search results than any other company. Honorlock does utilize SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in an attempt to seed what’s called “honeypot” sites in meaningful ways. Honorlock does not, at any point, hijack any device, secondary or otherwise, to deliver the service. At no point does Honorlock have direct control over any device, secondary or otherwise, before, during, or after the test-taking experience.Honorlock does not need to, nor is it able to, monitor any activity from secondary devices during the testing period to deliver the service. It directs you to the public information available on the service as a patented technology on file with the U.S. Patent Office, links provided above. Honorlock in no way monitors any activity on the test taker’s network from any secondary devices. It does interact with the test-takers test-taking device/computer to deliver the service as outlined above regarding internet connection quality monitoring.

Students using their smartphones to search online resources for test questions should note that Honorlock utilizes a manual technology to detect academic integrity issues. Specifically, Honorlock hosts websites with seeded test questions that, when assessed during an examination session, sets off an action on the phone. This action is picked up during the student’s session and alerts instructors to review for academic integrity issues. Honorlock does not initiate any technologies to eavesdrop on the student’s smartphone activity either during or after an examination session.

All data in transit and at rest is encrypted and stored within Honorlock’s private cloud in an Amazon (AWS) data center. Amazon’s data centers are SOC 2 Type 1, U.S. Privacy Shield, and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant. Read the Honorlock GDPR & Privacy Shield Notice here. Please also review the Honorlock Privacy Policy here.