Typically woeful magical thinking here. This from an Oxford spokesbeing: "Remote invigilation is widely used in the higher education sector." Erm, no, it *isn't*, if you're talking about the UK. Which is as you'd hope, given that it doesn't work. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8c151728-9e03-11ea-b3fd-83a0d4cc538d?shareToken=3f61288c8e09e38c14b72af26f8d7c9a

The invasion-of-privacy problem is significant, in that it gives you a sense of the values of the people who sign off on this stuff... but there's no need to invoke it as a reason not to do remote invigilation. A sufficient reason not to do it is that it doesn't work.

If an entrant wishes to cheat on a non-open-book online-remote-invigilated test assessed by typed or written answers, that individual will be able to cheat. There are any number of viable approaches to doing so.

The mania for trying to do cheat-proof remote invigilation, which you can't do, seems mainly to be grounded in the fact that it would be great if you could.

You could say the same thing about making an emissions-free car. Nobody attempts that because it's not #edtech.

This from a leading vendor doesn't inspire confidence.

Erm, it's quite easy to find out how airport scanners work. The first widespread approach was X-ray backscatter, which involves ionising radiation and led to significant debate on possible health risks...

...so that most installations now use non-ionising millimetre-band radio waves. These still have a bad track record for false positives, and potential privacy problems are inherent in the approach. Right of opt-out is automatic in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/573478/security-scanner-code-of-practice-2016.pdf

A "camera sweep of the room", there.

An absolute gift to the would-be cheat, directing the invigilator's attention out to the corners of the room and firmly away from, say, the lightweight rucksack velcroed to your back which goes under the desk as you set the device down.

There must be a thousand such dodges. My expertise in these matters extends no further than owning a DVD box set of Jonathan Creek, but I'm pretty sure we have here one of the happiest hunting grounds for legerdemain and misdirection ever contrived.