Unmasking the Imposters: Identity Fraud, Deepfakes and Online Test Integrity

In addition to our global network of High Stakes Test Centres, LANGUAGECERT Academic is also available worldwide 24/7 as an online, live-proctored, at-home option. Confidence and trust in the integrity of results are ensured by sector-leading security, which combines proprietary software, human proctors and cameras.

Someone somewhere is always going to try to beat the system. Human motivation and ingenuity are powerful forces. Identity fraud and impostors sitting exams are nothing new. However, today, someone who doesn't have to leave the comfort of their home and has the motivation to 'pass' a high-stakes admissions test using artificial intelligence to generate deepfakes poses an additional risk. It is a fundamental responsibility of assessment providers to counter such threats and to maintain trust in test security and integrity.

Identity Fraud and Impostors

One form of malpractice is related to identity fraud and impostors. For LANGUAGECERT Academic, we only accept passports as a valid form of identification for both the in-person tests at our network of High Stakes Test Centres and online, at-home options. This is the starting point for a series of integrated identity and security checks that take place through the test-taking experience from beginning to end.

For the LANGUAGECERT Academic online, at-home option, the first stage is to verify the test taker's identity and ensure that the test taker is not an imposter. The test taker, prior to the test onboarding process, downloads our specially developed, proprietary ExamShield Mobile app to their smartphone. Shortly before the test begins, the test taker, using their smartphone, captures images of their face and passport.

LANGUAGECERT has partnered with Aware, industry leaders in biometric identification who provide services to governments and the financial sector, to develop our Know Your Customer (KYC) software solution to combat identity fraud. The application verifies the test taker's passport against the respective security features and format of passports issued by the country of origin. The ExamShield Mobile app, using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, extracts the information contained in a passport’s biometric chip; compares the photo taken of themself by the test taker to the photo printed in the passport and the image contained in the passport’s chip and performs 'liveness detection' to check that the photo is not a deepfake filter or overlay. If these checks are passed, the photo taken by the test taker is included in their Test Report.

Deepfakes

Deepfakes are images, video and audio produced by artificial intelligence. At its best, the media created is used for entertainment, and at its worst, the intention is to deceive for illegitimate personal and financial ends. In relation to exam and test malpractice, deepfakes are used to create fake forms of identification and to create filters or overlays which try to mask a test taker's face in real-time when they take online at-home tests. The term deepfake is misleading because it does not refer to the depth of the deception but to the deep learning aspect of the generative artificial intelligence used in creating deepfakes. It is the complexity and sophistication of this technology that can make deepfakes so convincing and difficult to detect. However, deepfakes are detectable, and the LANGUAGECERT team of online proctors is our detective - a human solution to a technological threat.

Online Proctors

The primary role of our online proctors is to guide and assist the test taker through the testing process to make the test experience as positive as possible and enable us to collect an authentic sample of the test taker’s performance. Our objective is to make the test experience a human rather than an alienating, anonymous and automated computer-led interaction, and to make the test taker feel like an individual rather than a candidate number. Our online proctors also play a pivotal role in ensuring and verifying that the individual is who they should be and in unmasking impostors.

There is a checklist of telltale signs proctors follow to spot the use of deepfake overlays and filters. Among other give-away signs, proctors look for blurred or doubled faces, lines around the face, lighting anomalies, inconsistent backgrounds and eye discrepancies. The checklist also contains a list of movements the proctor can ask the test taker to perform, including moving around in such a way as to cause a glitch and make the deepfake mask slip.

ExamShield – Securing the Device

A further goal of online at-home testing malpractice prevention is to ensure that the device the test taker uses to take the test, as well as the room where they take it, are secure and free from outside assistance or interference. To prevent such interference, a laptop is the only permitted device for LANGUAGECERT Academic, because desktop computers with their multiple ports for additional devices are inherently less secure than laptops.

With traditional pen and paper exams, the test taker's only information and tools are a question paper, answer booklet and pen. For an online at-home test to be secure, the same conditions must apply, but the test taker has a keyboard and mouse instead of a pen. Before their test, the test taker downloads our easy-to-install, self-serve, guided Examshield software to their laptop. This software provides a secure, interference-free portal so the test taker can only view and access on their laptop the equivalent of a combined question paper and answer booklet.

The software disables certain keyboard and mouse functions, such as copy and paste, and prevents any programs installed on the laptop from running simultaneously alongside the test. Also, the software allows only the use of one monitor, prevents virtual access and blocks communication applications. ExamShield secures the test taker's laptop and by using the test taker’s smartphone as a second camera, in addition to the laptop camera, ensures the test room is also secure.

Second Camera – Securing the Room

In addition to performing identity verification, the ExamShield Mobile app enables the test taker’s smartphone to function as a second camera, complementing the first camera on the test taker’s laptop. The test taker first uses their phone to live stream a complete 360-degree view of the room and then positions the phone so that the keyboard and monitor are in sight, providing a continuous live feed for the duration of the test. The online proctor will halt the test if there is any interruption to the live feed or a connection dropout from either the phone or the laptop.

Verifying Results

The flipside to identity fraud is credential fraud and false certification. LANGUAGECERT's Score Verification System (SVS) is a secure, user-friendly platform that enables institutions to reliably and efficiently access and verify LANGUAGECERT test results. Importantly, institutions, through an Admin User (Super User), have control over creating and managing access for their team members and system users. The SVS features custom search and filter functionality, downloadable PDF and CSV formats, and our Admissions Toolkit.

Someone somewhere will always have the motivation and ingenuity to try to beat the system. There is little LANGUAGECERT can do to change their motivation. Rather, it is our responsibility to ensure there is no opportunity to beat the system. We do this by creating a secure, at-home test environment and negating artificial intelligence's ingenuity with the seamless combination of cameras, the human eye and software solutions.