Video surveillance on the exam. Algorithm of work and legal instruction

People take video surveillance on exams differently. The system has changed for the better in recent years. It still does not solve all problems, but it helps students to defend justice in court. The video recordings help the judges to resolve disputes objectively.

Before 2012 

There was no monitoring system for the unified exam before the 2012 presidential elections. After the election, Dmitry Medvedev introduced observation in polling stations and the Unified State Exam classrooms.

This was a necessary and timely decision because information leaked, people cheated, corruption and fraud were often in the exams. For example, in 2013, there was a massive scandal because all assignments leaked to the Internet.

Everything changed in 2014. The Federal Service for the Supervision of Education and Science has created and published guidelines for video surveillance installation on exams. From that point, cameras began to be mounted in auditoriums across the country. This created the first form of transparency for the unified state exams.

Judicial practice

The USE video cameras have brought enormous benefits to the judicial practice on the examination in regards to students’ removal from exams. The Supreme Court of Russia, starting from 2017, annually publishes the procedure for the past year.

The documents indicate that 87% of the decisions made were not disputed. It means that in most cases, the court made the right decision. With the help of monitoring systems, such statistics have developed in the judicial practice of Russia because the video footage obtained within the framework of the law is very powerful evidence.

Work algorithm

The surveillance camera on the exam is a “smart” algorithm that looks and analyzes what is happening in the frame.

Read more about the capabilities of video analytics today in the article: “Intelligent video analytics: advantages, principles, objectives.“

A “smart” camera records a possible violation and notifies observers about it. And people, looking at the fact of the deviation of the examinee’s behavior, decide if they should remove one. The violation signal looks like a small fragment of the survey, where the act of violation is highlighted in a red square.

For example, a student is leaning heavily and looking under the table, trying to get something out of his pocket, or behaving strangely. This will activate the algorithm.

Thus, the camera itself does not make a decision. It only monitors strange behavior and sends notifications about a possible violation of the rules.

Legal instruction for USE participants

Teachers and organizers of the exam, as a rule, do not talk about legal instructions regarding video surveillance. Therefore, most students do not know how to behave under cameras.

Each examinee should know:

• surveillance cameras cannot be placed in washrooms;
• in the rooms where video surveillance is taking place, there must be a notification in the form of a sign “video surveillance is in progress”. Hidden cameras are banned in Russia;
• classrooms have “smart” monitoring with biometrics processing. Therefore, before the start of the exam, students must give their written consent to the collection of personal data.

More information about the legal regulation of surveillance can be found in the article: “Ban on video surveillance. What is it?“.

If at least 1 point out of 3 was violated during the exam, a student with his parents has the right to apply to the court. Moreover, the victory in 100% will be on the side of the examinee.

Summing up

The introduction of the monitoring system made it possible to conduct fair examinations in Russia. Everyone, both the student and the organizer, is protected from each other’s erroneous decisions. And in the event of a dispute, the recording from cameras will act as objective evidence.