Hong Kong's exams body calls time on students cheating with watches
Alert raised on electronic 'smartwatches' that let students store notes and surf the web discreetly
Supervisors at exam centres are being warned to be on the lookout for students cheating with electronic devices, including feature-rich "smartwatches".
The latest generation of such watches, powered by Google and released by Samsung and LG in recent weeks, may become a cheating headache as they enable the user to check e-mail, store notes and perform online searches from the wrist.
Professor Szeto Kwok Yip, of the University of Science and Technology's physics department, said students were already "very smart at cheating".
"For freshman and secondary school pupils, smartwatches could be a problem," he said. All electronic devices, including smartwatches, are banned from exams by the Examinations and Assessment Authority.
While the authority reported only one case of cheating last year, during a Diploma of Secondary Education exam, 26 pupils were penalised for plagiarism after they were found to have copied articles without citations from the internet.
A spokesman for the authority said: "Candidates are advised to bring their own watch to time the exam as not all the exam rooms will have a clock.
"We would not ban the use of watches, but we will update centre supervisors on any new electronic devices capable of gaining unfair assistance … The smartwatches look quite different from the normal watches in appearance, and centre supervisors and invigilators have been alerted."
