I looked at what Sophia tracks. Here's what gets logged, and why some honest students may be getting caught too.
Last week (9/30/2026) Sophia made a bunch of changes. Since then a lot of people are saying their courses aren't getting certified, even though they didn't cheat. I'm one of them. I don't know what changed on their end, so I looked at what I could see from my own browser.
How I did it:
I opened Chrome dev tools on app.sophia.org and watched the Network tab while I worked. I read what got sent out. Then I read the JavaScript files the site loads to see what they listen for. Anyone can do this. Nothing was hacked or hidden.
Where it runs:
I saw this tracking on the dashboard, on challenges, and on milestones. The same events showed up on each. Milestones also add a typing rhythm check and a photo ID with selfie.
What Sophia's own tracker logs (tied to your account ID)
- Every time you leave the tab and come back, with a timestamp
- Every right-click
- Every time you copy text from the page (up to about 2,000 characters)
- Every time you paste into an answer box
- Scrolling activity + idle time (60+ seconds with no movement) on a screen
- A "screenshot" flag when you hold two or more of Shift, Command, Control and Option at once
That last one is crude. Opening dev tools set it off for me. I never took a screenshot.
Timing and clicks
- The site also tracks how long you spend on a page. - I saw requests that record when I click on the page. TikTok's ad pixel counts clicks and scrolls every couple of minutes. There's also a per-question timer script called Pingator on challenge pages. I didn't read its code, so I can't say exactly what it records.
What I didn't find
No webcam or mic access. FullStory (a screen recording tool) loads on the site, but Sophia's account refuses it on the course pages I checked, and no recording was sent. I did not read every script on the site, so I can't rule out more.
At milestones they also check your typing rhythm and your photo ID with a selfie.
What I can't tell you
I can't see what Sophia does with these logs. I can't say they're why anyone was denied certification. That happens on their servers. I'm only saying what gets collected.
"Just don't cheat and you won't get caught"
I know this reply is coming. Here's the problem. These logs can't tell cheating from normal behavior. Switching tabs to check your notes gets logged. Opening dev tools gets logged as a screenshot. Copying a question to look up a term gets logged. Most of these courses are open book. Spending too little or too much time on something may get you flagged.
If a system treats those signals as suspicious, honest students get caught in it. I think that's what's happening to people, but I can't prove it.
What you can do
- Don't hold two modifier keys together
- Avoid copying question text off any page
- Keep tab switching low during graded work
If you have a payload or script that shows something I missed, post it. I'll fix this if I got anything wrong.