On the efficacy of online proctoring using Proctorio (2021) [pdf]
The purpose of these kinds of tools isn't to prevent cheating. Just like most DRM schemes, the purpose of these tools is the same as any other external consultant - so that the administration or people in charge of the school can offload the responsibilities related to any cheating that may happen to an external party, and if questioned, can respond that "reasonably secure technical measures have been taken to guarantee the integrity of the exam".<p>Whether the integrity of the exams is actually guaranteed is immaterial, because the company that made the nanny software went on the record and took responsibility, and/or by splitting the responsibility, the school admin and the nanny software vendor can point fingers at each other and the responsibility essentially <i>disappears</i> like it usually does.<p>You can see this with most other security theater type things. As long the "general public" is unaware that they have been lied to, they will accept this kind of positioning as gospel, and not look into it further. For the most part, as expected, the world turns around just fine without real security because systems tend to be robust to a certain level of bad actors doing selfish and small scale bad things like exam cheating, and as long as nobody's feelings are hurt, it's all fine.