Yes, when proctoring is active for your exam. Honorlock works differently from most proctoring tools: instead of a lockdown browser or a desktop app, it runs as a Chrome extension, and when your instructor enables it, the extension records your screen along with webcam video and room audio for the duration of the exam.
The employer-side equivalent is roughly how browser-based candidate assessment tools monitor sessions — same category of capture, and similarly, the settings decide how much is retained.
What gets captured
With the standard configuration active, Honorlock collects:
- Screen recording — everything visible in the browser during the session.
- Webcam video — continuous, after a mandatory photo during the setup check.
- Audio — room sound, flagged on unusual volume or multiple voices.
- Tab and window events — switching away from the exam tab is captured and flagged.
- Keystroke metadata — notably whether typing is uniform (human) or instantaneous blocks (paste-like). A burst of text appearing in one instant is a flag by itself.
- Identity signals — the setup photo compared against the session, plus optional ID checks your institution may require.
What the AI does with it
Honorlock's AI reviews the stream in real time for a known list of behaviors: faces leaving the frame, additional faces or voices, looking away repeatedly, prohibited objects detected in the room scan, pasting into essay fields, unauthorized tabs or windows. Each detection writes a timestamped flag onto the session timeline. No human is watching live unless your instructor enabled live proctoring as an add-on; afterward, the instructor reviews flagged moments, not the whole recording — which is why your friend is the context around a flag, not the absence of flags.
How to avoid false flags
These work purely because the system is over-sensitive:
- Run the setup checks fully: camera, microphone, network speed test, and the 360° room scan. Skipped or partial checks cause more flags than anything else.
- Sit in good light on your face, not backlit by a window.
- Stay in frame — leaning out to stretch is the classic "no student detected" flag.
- Type naturally. Copy-pasting large blocks (even your own notes, if allowed) trips instant-text detection; if the rules allow notes, type or paste in small pieces.
- Close everything else in Chrome; a second tab you never touch still can't be explained away by the log alone.
- Warn anyone in the house. A sibling crossing the room is a "multiple faces" flag exactly like a collaborator.
Recordings are typically retained by your institution under its own policy — Honorlock's default retention windows vary by contract — so if a flagged moment matters, request the clip early.
For employers and educators configuring it
Screen-plus-webcam coverage on every session is the maximum-surveillance option; decide whether the assessment risk justifies it and whether reviewers actually look at the footage. On the hiring side, monitoring depth that exceeds the integrity risk mainly taxes honest candidates — the evaluation design (what the assessment measures, how answers are scored, what humans review) usually carries far more signal per hour of reviewer time than extra capture does. AI candidate evaluation covers sequencing assessment, scoring, and shortlisting into one pipeline instead of bolted-on gates. Whatever you enable, state plainly in the invite that screen and video recording are active — silent monitoring is a trust problem and in some jurisdictions a legal one.
Bottom line
When enabled, Honorlock records your screen, webcam, and audio through its Chrome extension, and its AI flags faces, voices, tab switches, pastes, and gaze events for the instructor to review after the fact. Complete every setup check, stay in frame, type instead of pasting, keep one tab, and brief your household — then a wrongful flag is answered by pointing the reviewer at the timestamp.