Security your school can sign off on.
How lockdown works, where student data lives, and what we never collect.
Two levels of lockdown
Runs in a normal tab. Nothing is blocked, but the session is recorded and leaving the tab is flagged.
Kiosk mode in our desktop app. Other apps are closed off, copy and paste are blocked, and a second monitor stops the exam from starting.
What kiosk mode does
The exam takes over the screen. Focus snaps back the moment another app takes it, copy and paste are blocked, and quit and close shortcuts are intercepted. A second monitor stops the exam from starting and is flagged if it appears mid-exam.
What the system reserves
On Mac, a few shortcuts including Cmd-Tab, Spotlight and Force Quit are reserved by macOS and no app can intercept them. Kiosk mode and focus snap-back keep the exam in front of the student instead. On Windows the app intercepts Alt-Tab, the Windows key and Print Screen directly, and records each attempt. Ctrl-Alt-Delete belongs to the system on every machine and no exam tool can take it, ours included. We log it rather than claim otherwise.
When a rule breaks
You choose, per assignment: warn the student, log a flag on the dashboard, or end the exam and collect the work.
Who has to install anything
Install the desktop app →Build, publish, watch progress and grade in a browser.
Open and browser-monitored work runs in any browser, Chromebooks included. Desktop-lockdown exams open in the app.
The same locked exam on both. On Windows the app also intercepts Alt-Tab, the Windows key and Print Screen, which no browser can do. Desktop lockdown is on every plan, Free included.
During the test
A live dashboard shows every student's status. Each flag links to its moment in the recording.
Every school's data sits in its own vault.
Student answers, names, rosters, feedback, tutor conversations and grades are encrypted at rest with AES-256, under a key that exists for your school alone.
A database dump, a stolen backup or an admin console shows sealed data, not student work. Each value is bound to its class and column, so ciphertext cannot be moved between students or school years.
A dedicated key service in a separate AWS account, under a policy naming a single principal — that account's own root user is locked out. Working copies expire in minutes, so a key that is disabled stops opening data inside that window rather than at the next restart.
Every fetch of a school's key is written to a school-named audit log in write-once storage, kept two years. Nobody at AssignHQ can edit or erase it.
Staff access, key-service access and your own admins' actions, in one log on your school page — with a one-file export and a deletion request beside it. Emergency access by our staff is emailed to your administrators as it happens.
Our servers do decrypt data to show a teacher their own gradebook. What we built is a system where nobody, including us, can do that silently. Your IT team is welcome to verify every claim on this page.
The facts, at a glance
For whoever reviews vendors at your school.
Privacy policy, what we store, terms, and a data processing agreement on request. Teachers sign in with Google. We claim no certification we do not hold.
Send them this page, or write to us and we answer in writing.