How Proctoring Software Detects Screen Capture
Proctoring software uses screen capture APIs to monitor what students see during exams. Understanding these detection mechanisms reveals why certain methods fail and why system-level approaches work.
Screen monitoring on macOS uses a small set of system APIs for full-screen capture, live recording, and ScreenCaptureKit-based sharing. All of them honor the same window-level privacy mechanism: marked windows are excluded from results. Browser-based proctoring extensions ultimately route through these same system APIs. Fracture creates windows that are physically rendered on screen but invisible to all capture pipelines.
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Fracture runs a native floating overlay that sets the macOS window privacy flag. It is 100% excluded from screen capture feeds, window lists, and proctor recordings.