Does Lockdown Browser Record Your Screen? What Students Need to Know
If you've ever sat down for an online exam and wondered whether your screen activity is being captured and sent to your instructor, you're not alone. Respondus Lockdown Browser is one of the most widely used exam-integrity tools in higher education, and the question of what it actually monitors — versus what it doesn't — matters for any student using it.
The short answer: Lockdown Browser itself does not record your screen by default. But the full picture is more nuanced than that, and the answer changes significantly depending on how your institution has configured it.
What Respondus Lockdown Browser Actually Does
Lockdown Browser is a custom-built browser that replaces your standard browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) during an online exam. Its primary function is restriction, not surveillance. Specifically, it:
- Prevents you from opening other tabs or applications
- Disables copy-paste functions
- Blocks screen capture and screenshot tools
- Prevents access to virtual machines during testing
- Locks you into the exam environment until you submit
Think of it as a digital fence rather than a camera. The software constrains what you can do on your device, but the base version of Lockdown Browser doesn't transmit recordings of your screen activity to anyone.
Where Respondus Monitor Changes Everything 🎥
Here's where the confusion typically starts. Respondus offers a companion product called Respondus Monitor, which is a separate — and distinctly more surveillance-oriented — tool. When Monitor is enabled alongside Lockdown Browser, the experience shifts dramatically.
Respondus Monitor uses your webcam to record video of you during the exam. That footage is then reviewed — either by automated AI flagging or by a human instructor — after the exam is submitted.
What Respondus Monitor can capture:
- Video of your face and surroundings via webcam
- Audio through your microphone
- Eye movement patterns (flagged by AI analysis)
- Head movement and gaze direction
- Presence of other people in the room
What it typically does not do is record a live video feed of your actual screen content. The screen-lock mechanism handles that side of integrity — Monitor focuses on the person, not the pixels.
Does Lockdown Browser Record Your Screen Passively?
This is the specific question most students are asking, and the accurate answer is: no, not in the traditional screen-recording sense. The software doesn't create a video file of everything you see and do on your monitor during an exam.
However, behavioral data is still logged. Lockdown Browser tracks events such as:
- Attempts to exit fullscreen mode
- Keyboard shortcuts associated with switching applications
- Browser navigation attempts
- System-level interruptions
These events are recorded as flags in the exam session log, which instructors can review. So while there's no screen video, there is a behavioral audit trail. An attempt to alt-tab or open Task Manager will likely appear in that log.
The Configuration Variable: Your Institution Decides
The most important thing to understand is that Respondus Lockdown Browser and Monitor are highly configurable, and the level of monitoring you're subject to depends entirely on how your school and individual instructors have set things up.
| Feature | Lockdown Browser (Base) | With Respondus Monitor Enabled |
|---|---|---|
| Screen recording | ❌ No | ❌ No (still not screen video) |
| Webcam recording | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Microphone recording | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Behavioral event logging | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| AI flagging of behavior | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Instructor video review | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
Some instructors enable Monitor for every exam. Others use Lockdown Browser alone. Some disable certain Monitor features like audio recording. There is no universal standard — your course syllabus and your school's LMS configuration are the determining factors.
What Your Device and OS Affect
The behavior of Lockdown Browser also varies slightly depending on your operating system. The software is available for Windows, macOS, iOS, and ChromeOS, but the depth of system-level access it can enforce differs across platforms.
On iOS and ChromeOS, for example, certain low-level restrictions that are possible on Windows or macOS may behave differently due to operating system permissions. Students using iPad versions of Lockdown Browser sometimes find that the feature set is slightly narrower than the desktop counterpart. If your exam requires Monitor, iOS support has historically been limited or required specific institution settings.
Common Misconceptions Worth Clearing Up 🧠
"Lockdown Browser can see my other monitors." The software is designed to restrict the active exam session. Multi-monitor setups are often flagged or blocked at the setup stage, particularly when Monitor is running.
"It records everything I do after I submit." Lockdown Browser's session ends at submission. It does not run as background software once the exam window closes.
"My instructor watches me live during the exam." With Monitor, recording typically happens asynchronously. The video is reviewed after submission, not monitored in real time — though some institutions may configure live proctoring separately through third-party services.
The Factor That Determines Your Situation
Understanding what Lockdown Browser does in general is only the starting point. Whether screen recording, webcam capture, or any specific monitoring feature applies to your exam comes down to a specific combination of factors: which products your institution has licensed, how your instructor configured the exam, which device and OS you're using, and whether your course requires Monitor as a prerequisite for testing.
Those details live in your course materials, your LMS exam settings, and — if unclear — in a direct question to your instructor before exam day.