Honorlock: What It Is And How It Detects Cheating

Updated July 2026

Wondering how each tool catches cheating? See our full guide to online cheating detection.

Honorlock is one of the proctoring platforms US schools use most, alongside Proctorio and ProctorU. This guide covers what it actually does during an exam, what it can and cannot detect, and the questions students ask most — based on how the service describes its own features in 2026.

What Does Honorlock Actually Do During an Exam?

Before the test starts, Honorlock takes a picture of you and your photo ID, then has you scan the room with your webcam to show no one else is present. During the test, the Chrome extension records your webcam, microphone, and screen while restricting the browser to the exam. The AI monitors those feeds and alerts a live proctor only when something looks off — Honorlock’s own student page stresses that you are not being watched by a person the entire time. Afterward, flagged moments are packaged for your instructor to review; the software, not a proctor, decides nothing on its own.

What is Honorlock

Honorlock is an online proctoring service provider for academic institutions. The service leverages a combination of artificial intelligence and live human proctors to produce the best results.

While most proctoring companies either resort to leveraging artificial intelligence alone or live human proctors, Honolock provides the best of both worlds.

The artificial intelligence combined with live proctor ensures that only relevant cheating instances during testing are flagged for review.

See these other popular picks in this category:

• ProctorU Cheating And Prevention
• Does Course Hero Notify Your School?

How Honorlock Works

Candidates are required to install Honorlock’s Google Chrome extension which will be used for examination monitoring.

The Google Chrome extension enables Honorlock to gain some level of access to the browser’s functionalities and facilitate test monitoring.

It’s worth noting that the instructors or the institution can choose the specific features to either enable or disable for students.

For standard exams no separate software install is needed — the service runs entirely through the Chrome extension. (Chrome is the only supported browser; Safari, Firefox, and Edge won’t work.)

– Video, Audio, And Screen Recording

The Chrome extension, once installed and permissions granted, enables Honorlock to gain access to the candidate’s webcam, microphone, and desktop screen.

Using the webcam, Honorlock can record the candidate during the test and the microphone helps record any sounds in the room.

A scan of the environment will also ensure that the candidate has no notes, a second screen, or someone hidden in the testing environment shouting answers to them.

Most importantly, the webcam and microphone serve to record the candidate’s movement and any sounds during the test.

Any abnormalities including prolonged disappearance from the camera’s field of view are immediately flagged by the artificial intelligence and a live proctor is then prompted for review.

The screen is also recorded during the test to deter candidates from leveraging any resources available on their computers.

– Browser Guard

While the test is ongoing, Honorlock’s Browser Guard restricts access to non-whitelisted pages. This means students won’t be able to visit any websites and the system also flags and records any attempted links to be presented for analysis.

That said, instructors can whitelist specific websites which students would be allowed to visit during test-taking.

It is also recommended that no other tabs are open while test-taking as the system automatically closes these if available before the test.

Honorlock also disables copy/paste functionality to prevent students from copying and pasting test content

It also disables any print functionality to prevent students from printing or saving pages or content as PDFs.

The extension also prevents users from using multiple or mirrored displays connected to their respective computers.

How Honorlock Detects Cheating

Honorlock detects cheating by leveraging its browser extension to monitor, restrict and flag any suspicious student activities during a test. (It also plugs into your school’s LMS — see how proctoring fits alongside what Blackboard itself can see.)

Access to the webcam, microphone, and control over the candidate browser enables Honorlock to record the computer screen, track the candidate’s movement and behavior and identify any attempts to cheat.

While Honorlock’s artificial intelligence does a good job of identifying and incidences, it lacks the refinement to identify specific incidences that should be ignored, which leads to numerous flagged incidences.

Honorlock compensates for this weakness by notifying live or human proctors who can review and identify whether an incident constitutes cheating.

How Does Honorlock Detect Other Devices

Honorlock cannot see other devices on your network — it says so itself, and network scanning would be a serious privacy problem. What it does instead is cleverer: it hosts decoy “honeypot” websites seeded with exam questions. According to Honorlock’s own patent, exam questions are “watermarked” with character substitutions so the decoy pages rank when a student copy-searches the question. If a student opens one of those pages on a phone during the exam window, the page plays an audio watermark that the exam computer’s microphone picks up — tying the phone lookup to that specific testing session.

While Honorlock claims this system makes it possible to detect students using their phones to cheat, students only get flagged when they access these seeded questions.

Students who leverage popular platforms like Chegg on the other hand may not be easily detected during examinations.

Does Honorlock Track Your Eyes or Use Facial Recognition?

Two of the most-searched Honorlock fears, and the honest answer to both is no — with a nuance. Honorlock does not use retinal or pupil eye-tracking, and it uses facial detection, not facial recognition: the software only checks that a clear human face is present in the webcam frame, and a human — not an algorithm — matches your face to your ID photo. It does not store facial geometry or match you against a database. The nuance: the AI watches behavior, so repeatedly looking away from the screen for long stretches can still be flagged as suspicious activity for a proctor to review — not because your eyes were tracked, but because the pattern stood out on camera.

Does Honorlock Work in China or Outside the US?

Often it does not work well. University IT departments warn that students located in China (as well as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Crimea) may be unable to reach proctored exams because of national firewalls — and there is a catch-22: students in China typically need a VPN to install Chrome and the Honorlock extension, but Honorlock detects VPN and proxy connections and blocks proctored sessions that use them. If you will be taking exams from one of these regions, tell your instructor before the exam window — schools usually arrange an alternative rather than expecting Honorlock to work there.

What Happens if Honorlock Flags You?

A flag is not an accusation. When the AI marks a moment — a face leaving the frame, a voice in the room, a blocked-site attempt — a live proctor first checks whether it is actually worth noting, and anything that survives that review lands with your instructor as a timestamped clip. Your instructor (and your school’s academic-integrity process) decides what, if anything, happens next; Honorlock itself issues no penalties. If you think a flag was innocent — a roommate walked in, your internet dropped, you read a question aloud — note the time it happened and email your instructor proactively. An explained flag usually dies quietly; an unexplained one invites follow-up questions.

Requirements For Honorlock Test