Smart glasses spark cheating fears as universities scramble for solutions

A new form of cheating has emerged on South Korean campuses: examinees wearing AI-enabled smart glasses during tests. Detections are mounting, but as the devices grow increasingly indistinguishable from ordinary eyewear, no clear countermeasures have been put in place.

The Ministry of Education recently sent a directive to regional education offices instructing them to add AI glasses to the list of prohibited items in examination halls and to watch closely for unnatural behavior among test-takers.

The move followed a string of incidents — three examinees were caught wearing AI glasses during the electrical and fire-safety engineer licensing exams in May, and two more were subsequently detected during regular TOEIC sittings.

Yet universities are still poorly prepared to prevent cheating as the College Scholastic Ability Test and rolling admissions essay exams approach in the second half of this year.

On-campus cheating in particular remains a blind spot. Unlike the CSAT, in-class cheating is not subject to criminal penalties, and critics say universities have largely stood back and responded passively as a result.

The problem persists even after campuses were rattled last year by a wave of cheating cases involving generative AI — a sign that anti-cheating measures have failed to keep pace with technological development.

Seoul National University said it has not yet held any discussions on how to handle smart-glasses cheating on campus. Korea University, Ewha Womans University and Sungkyunkwan University said they have no separate guidelines yet but are in talks about how to respond.

Even institutions that have drawn up internal guidelines face clear limits on their effectiveness. Chung-Ang University's medical school was ahead of the curve when it banned AI glasses from examination rooms in student assessment guidelines adopted in September last year.

Those guidelines also instructed proctors to check whether glasses temples were abnormally thick and to watch for repeated touching or manipulation of the temples. The detection methods reflected the design of AI glasses available on the market at the time, which were bulkier than standard frames and required conspicuous hand gestures to operate.

Within just a year, however, rapid technological advances have rendered those methods largely ineffective. Experts agree that countermeasures must keep pace with the technology.

Park Nam-gi, an emeritus professor of education at Gwangju National University of Education, said that as AI glasses become indistinguishable from regular ones, introducing detection devices is ultimately unavoidable. "We should also consider recording examinees during tests," he added.

Many experts expect new cheating methods to emerge continuously as AI devices advance rapidly. Calculators equipped with generative AI and built-in cameras are already on sale overseas, and compact AI devices such as smart contact lenses are in development.

Some argue that a fundamental shift in how exams are designed is needed. Moon Hyung-nam, chairman of the Korea AI Education Association, said the testing system must evolve to assess critical thinking, problem-solving and creativity on the assumption that AI tools are available. "Just as the introduction of calculators transformed mathematics education, the AI era demands an innovation in how we assess students," he said.

Moon argued that the conventional exam format — selecting from a fixed set of answers, with memorization determining success or failure — has reached its limits in the AI age.

Park agreed that guidelines simply barring AI use will ultimately do little to stop cheating. He called for a paradigm shift in assessment — one that requires students to document every step of their problem-solving process and attach research notes, so that even when AI is used, learners are still given the opportunity to think for themselves.