Seoul schools ban AI smart glasses from exams amid cheating fears
The city education office ordered schools to prohibit AI smart glasses during finals after a recent cheating case raised concerns over exam integrity.
Meta's AI glasses are displayed at a Shinsegae Department Store branch in Jung District, central Seoul, on May 25.
YONHAP
Seoul's education office put schools on alert ahead of first-semester final exams, over fears that AI smart glasses could be used to cheat.
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said Friday that it sent a notice to schools and district education offices the previous day, instructing them to add AI smart glasses to the list of prohibited items in examination rooms. Schools should also notify students and parents in advance that possession of the glasses during an exam would be treated as cheating and that anyone caught would be dealt with under academic record regulations, it added.
AI glasses are wearable devices that combine cameras and microphones with computer vision AI technology. The wearer can read text through a built-in camera using optical character recognition and send and receive audio wirelessly, making the glasses a potential tool for smuggling exam questions out of the room or receiving answers from outside.
Two test-takers last month were caught using AI glasses to cheat on the Test of English for International Communication exam — commonly known as the Toeic, marking the first known cheating case involving the technology in the test.
The recent memo reminded teachers to keep a close eye on students whose glasses have unusually thick arms or who touch their frames repeatedly during the exam in a way that seems unnatural.
It also included guidance on how to tell AI glasses apart from ordinary prescription eyewear. AI glasses tend to have thick, blunt temple arms housing a battery and control board. Many also conceal a miniature camera and sensors around the lens. Telltale signs include LED indicator lights, touch or physical buttons, speaker holes or charging ports on the inside of the arms.
"The intent [of the memo] is to protect the fairness and integrity of exams by alerting schools early to new electronic devices that could be used to cheat," an education office official said.
BY LEE HOO-YEON [[email protected]]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
