Reviewed and updated August 2026 against Respondus’s published product documentation.
Almost all the confusion around this question comes from two products being talked about as if they were one. They are sold together, they are often enabled together, and students experience them as a single thing called “the lockdown browser.” They do very different jobs, and only one of them involves a camera.
LockDown Browser vs Respondus Monitor
This distinction is the whole answer, so it is worth being precise about it.
| What your exam uses | What it does | Are you recorded? |
|---|---|---|
| LockDown Browser | Locks the testing environment | No recording. No webcam, no microphone, no video. |
| LockDown Browser + Respondus Monitor | Locking plus automated proctoring | Records you via webcam during the exam; flagged events go to the instructor afterwards. |
Respondus is explicit that Monitor “builds upon LockDown Browser” and that annual licensing of LockDown Browser includes a number of free Respondus Monitor seats. That bundling is why the two get conflated — but an institution can absolutely run LockDown Browser with no Monitor at all, and many do for exams sat in a supervised computer lab where a human is already in the room.
What LockDown Browser actually does
LockDown Browser is a custom browser that, in Respondus’s words, “locks down the testing environment within a learning management system.” Respondus says it is used at over 2,000 higher-education institutions. Rather than watching for rule-breaking, it removes the ability to break the rules in the first place. Respondus publishes the list:
- Assessments are displayed full-screen and cannot be minimized
- Browser menu and toolbar options are removed, except for Back, Forward, Refresh and Stop
- Prevents access to other applications including messaging, screen-sharing, virtual machines, and remote desktops
- Printing and screen capture functions are disabled
- Copying and pasting anything to or from an assessment is prevented
- Right-click menu options, function keys, keyboard shortcuts and task switching are disabled
- An assessment cannot be exited until the student submits it for grading
- Assessments set up for use with LockDown Browser cannot be accessed with other browsers
Read that list again with the original question in mind. Every item is a restriction. Not one of them is a recording. This is a prevention tool, and the absence of a camera from its feature list is not an oversight — it is the product boundary.
What LockDown Browser cannot do
Understanding the boundary is as useful as understanding the feature list, and it follows directly from what the product is. LockDown Browser is software running on the computer taking the exam. Its authority ends at the edge of that machine.
So it has no visibility into a second device. A phone or tablet sitting beside the laptop is outside its reach entirely — that is precisely the gap Respondus Monitor’s webcam is sold to close, and why institutions running high-stakes remote exams tend to enable both. It also cannot see anything happening in the room: notes on the desk, a person off to the side, a second screen out of shot. Without a camera there is simply no sensor pointed at any of it.
It is also not a general monitoring agent. Its restrictions apply while an assessment is open, and Respondus notes an assessment cannot be exited until it is submitted for grading. That framing — the exam session as the scope — is the useful way to think about it, and it is the honest answer to students worrying that it is silently watching their computer at other times.
What Respondus Monitor records
Monitor is where recording lives. Respondus describes it as a “fully automated proctoring solution” in which “students use a webcam to record themselves during an online exam,” after which “flagged events and proctoring results are available to the instructor for further review.”
Two details matter there. First, fully automated — there is no live human watching you in real time under Monitor. The review happens afterwards, by your instructor. Second, because it is a webcam recording, audio and video are captured together. That is the honest answer to “does it record audio”: not as a separate microphone feature, but yes, sound is part of a webcam recording. If you spoke during the exam, or someone else in the room did, that audio exists in the recording alongside the video and is available to your instructor in the same review.
Monitor is not limited to one platform. Respondus lists integrations with Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, Brightspace, Schoology, Pearson MyLab and Mastering, McGraw Hill ALEKS, Cengage WebAssign and Hawkes Learning — which is why the same webcam experience shows up in systems that otherwise behave very differently. If your exam was in ALEKS, see what ALEKS can detect.
How to tell which one your exam used
You do not have to guess, and you do not have to trust a blog. There are three reliable tells, all of which happen before the exam starts.
The webcam check. Respondus says students are “guided through a pre-exam sequence, including a webcam check.” If that happened — a preview of your own face, a prompt to adjust lighting or position — Monitor was on. If it did not happen, it was not.
The browser permission prompt. Camera access cannot be taken silently; your operating system or browser has to ask. No camera prompt means no camera.
The exam instructions. Institutions are generally required to tell students when a session is recorded. The assignment page, syllabus or exam-information document is the authoritative source for your specific exam, and your instructor can confirm it.
A flagged event is not a verdict
If you have been told your Monitor session was flagged, note what Respondus actually says: flagged events and proctoring results are made “available to the instructor for further review.” The software surfaces moments; a person decides what they mean.
Respondus does not publish a public list of the precise behaviours that trigger a flag, which is worth knowing because a great deal of confident internet writing claims to know exactly what it catches. Treat those lists as unverified. What is documented is the review step — and ordinary things routinely produce flags: leaving the frame, someone entering the room, poor lighting, reading a question aloud, a connection dropping.
This matches what other vendors say about their own signals. Instructure states that Canvas quiz logs “are not intended to validate academic integrity,” and Proctorio says its technology “informs human judgment rather than replacing it.” Across the category, the companies are more careful about their data than the internet is. See what Canvas can detect and how Proctorio works for those breakdowns, or the full guide to online cheating detection.
Frequently asked questions
Does LockDown Browser record you?
LockDown Browser on its own does not record. It is a locked-down browser: it restricts what your computer can do during the exam. Recording only happens when your institution also uses Respondus Monitor, which Respondus describes as adding “webcam technology to LockDown Browser.”
Does LockDown Browser record audio?
Not by itself. Where Respondus Monitor is in use, students record themselves by webcam, which captures video and sound together. If Monitor is not enabled for your exam, there is no recording of any kind.
How do I know if Respondus Monitor is being used?
You will be asked to do a webcam check before the exam starts. Respondus describes a pre-exam sequence that guides students through exactly that. If no camera step appeared and nothing asked for camera permission, you sat a LockDown-Browser-only exam.
Can LockDown Browser see my other tabs or applications?
It does not need to watch them, because it blocks them. Respondus states that it prevents access to other applications including messaging, screen-sharing, virtual machines and remote desktops, and disables task switching, so those actions cannot happen during the exam rather than being observed.
Does Respondus Monitor flag eye movement or talking to yourself?
Respondus publishes that flagged events and proctoring results are made available to the instructor for review, but it does not publish a public list of the exact behaviours that trigger a flag. Treat any site that gives you a precise trigger list as unverified. What is documented is that flags are reviewed by a person afterwards.
Is LockDown Browser spyware? Does it watch my computer after the exam?
The exam session is the scope. LockDown Browser restricts activity while an assessment is open and the assessment cannot be exited until it is submitted for grading. Respondus’s stated privacy principle is to “collect as little Personal Information as possible.”
Can I take a LockDown Browser exam in a normal browser?
No. Respondus states that assessments set up for use with LockDown Browser cannot be accessed with other browsers.
What devices does it work on?
Respondus says Monitor offers a native experience for Windows, Mac, Chromebook and iPad, and that it auto-launches from the student’s preferred browser after a one-time installation.
Josh Hutcheson — Editor, PriorityLearn
Josh researches, writes, and updates the answers on PriorityLearn, checking each one against current tools, official sources, and real school policies — and flagging what varies by state or district. About PriorityLearn →