‘Cheating jackets’, button cameras, rice-sized earpieces: Is this the end of uni exams?

Hoodies with cameras hidden in the drawstrings, glasses secretly taking photographs, hidden earpieces receiving information – wearable technology has opened a new front in universities’ war on the global criminal syndicates that seek to profit from cheating students and undermine exams.

Largely based in mainland China, contract cheating syndicates are deploying increasingly sophisticated technology from the $157 billion wearables industry, leaving students vulnerable to blackmail and universities scrambling to ensure their qualifications remain valuable.

The syndicates charge between $2000 and $5000 a subject, have local strongholds across Sydney and are turning to increasingly brazen tactics to funnel students into their schemes.

In the lead-up to exams, students collect gear – a “cheating jacket” that features parts of old mobile phones sewn into its lining, smart glasses , a button camera or a camera hidden in the drawstring of a hoodie – from the Sydney base and covertly take the equipment into the exam.

These devices are used to photograph and send the exam paper to the local base and passed on to a contract cheater. These may be in Australia or offshore, typically in Nigeria or India (both home to underemployed, highly qualified English speakers). They send the answer to the Sydney headquarters and that is relayed to the student via a hidden earpiece, some so small they need to be removed from the ear with magnets.

During the winter exam period at the University of Sydney, first-year courses across economics, chemistry, business and computing were all affected by cheating. The University of NSW also had a cheating incident inside an exam lab earlier this year that involved wearables, and the University of Melbourne has had similar incidents.

Universities across the globe are grappling with this. Numerous Chinese provinces now physically inspect glasses, while in Japan, a proposal to block the internet at exam venues was rejected because of the cost of installing giant Faraday cages. Spanish authorities are considering Bluetooth blockers, while doctors in Russia have reported students needing medical attention to remove tiny earpieces that got stuck.

University of Sydney pro-vice chancellor for educational innovation Adam Bridgeman said this method of cheating had been detected in the winter exam period.