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Low reported severity Internal Action

Victorian exam authority says student who used ChatGPT on a smuggled phone during a 2025 VCE exam admitted the breach and had marks reduced

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) said on 19 October 2026, as reported by The Age, that during the 2025 VCE exams a student smuggled a smartphone into an exam, uploaded exam questions to ChatGPT and attempted to pass off the AI-generated answers as their own before an exam supervisor caught them. According to the authority, the student admitted the breaches and had their marks reduced after a review. The student was one of 109 students the VCAA investigated for cheating in the 2025 VCE exams, up from 87 in 2024. The report does not identify the student, the school, the subject or the size of the reduction. The account is the exam authority's, relayed by one outlet.

AI system
ChatGPT
Occurred
2025
Reported
19 October 2026
Event location
Australia
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Educational Harm
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Education
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source
4 claims: 4 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: ChatGPT, used on a smartphone the student had smuggled into a 2025 VCE exam to answer uploaded exam questions, according to the VCAA

What Happened

The breach. According to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, as reported by The Age on 19 October 2026, a student taking a 2025 VCE exam had smuggled a smartphone into the exam room. An exam supervisor found that the student 'had uploaded questions to the popular chatbot and attempted to pass off the AI-generated answers as their own'.

The sanction. In its account of the authority's cases, The Age reported that the student 'admitted to the breaches and had their marks docked' and that both students it described 'had their marks reduced as a result of reviews'. A VCAA spokesperson said the authority investigates all alleged misconduct cases and 'may reduce a student’s examination score' when a breach of examination rules is found. The size of the reduction is not reported.

Context. The student was one of 109 students investigated for cheating in the 2025 VCE exams, up from 87 in 2024, according to the authority's internal data. The figures cover all kinds of exam misconduct, such as copying, mobile phones and unauthorised notes, and are not limited to AI use.

Reported harm

According to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, the student had their 2025 VCE examination marks reduced after admitting to using ChatGPT on a smuggled phone during the exam.

How Harm Occurred

A student used ChatGPT on a smuggled phone to answer exam questions; the exam authority treated the AI use as a breach of examination rules and reduced the student's marks.

Outcome

Resolved

According to the VCAA, the student admitted the breaches and had their examination marks reduced after a review. The size of the reduction and whether the student appealed are not reported.

What remains unknown

  • The subject, school and exact date of the exam.
  • How many marks were deducted and whether the student appealed.
  • The student's exact age; The Age's standfirst calls the student a teenager, which does not establish whether the student was under 18.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The VCAA said, as reported by The Age, that the student uploaded exam questions to ChatGPT on a smuggled smartphone and attempted to pass off its AI-generated answers as their own; the student admitted the breach and the authority reduced the student's marks. The student's exchange with ChatGPT is the prohibited use for which the exam authority imposed the sanction. The evidence is the authority's own account relayed by one outlet.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported According to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), during the 2025 VCE exams a student smuggled a smartphone into an exam, uploaded exam questions to ChatGPT and attempted to pass off the AI-generated answers as their own, and was caught by an exam supervisor.

Causal attribution. The exam authority's account as reported by The Age; no other account of the incident is available.

  • theage.com.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'A student secretly trying to use ChatGPT in their exams before being caught by an eagle-eyed supervisor'; 'After smuggling in a smartphone to the exam, the supervisor found the student had uploaded questions to the popular chatbot and attempted to pass off the AI-generated answers as their own, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) said on Monday.'; 'They were one of 109 students investigated for cheating during last year’s VCE exams, the authority said on Monday.'
Reported According to The Age's report of the VCAA statement, the student admitted the breaches and had their examination marks reduced after a review.

Causal attribution. The authority's account of its own decision, relayed by one outlet; the size of the reduction is not stated.

  • theage.com.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The student found using ChatGPT on their phone admitted to the breaches and had their marks docked.'; 'Both students who were caught had their marks reduced as a result of reviews.'
Reported A VCAA spokesperson said the authority investigates all alleged misconduct cases and may reduce a student's examination score if the student is found to have breached examination rules.

Causal attribution. The authority's description of its process.

  • theage.com.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The VCAA thoroughly investigates all alleged misconduct cases and may reduce a student’s examination score if they are found to have breached examination rules'
Reported The VCAA's data show 109 students investigated for cheating in the 2025 VCE exams, up from 87 in 2024.

Causal attribution. Context from the authority's internal data; the aggregate does not concern AI use alone and is not counted as harmed people.

Sources

1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English on 2026-10-20 from the publisher's page (HTTP 200). Published 19 October 2026, 4:31pm; the article reports a statement and internal data released by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority that Monday. A syndicated Adelaide Now report on the same data returned HTTP 403 and was not read. Applies to s1.

Event countries: Australia. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The exam was a VCE exam administered by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority in the Australian state of Victoria, as stated in the article. The student's residence is not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-20: Published as a sanction for prohibited AI use: the Victorian exam authority's account, reported by The Age, that a student used ChatGPT on a smuggled phone to answer questions in a 2025 VCE exam, admitted the breach and had marks reduced. The student, school and subject are not identified.

People described

A student sitting a 2025 VCE exam in Victoria whose marks were reduced for using ChatGPT during the exam

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One person: the student the VCAA says used ChatGPT during the exam and had marks reduced. The 109 students investigated for cheating in 2025 are an aggregate across all kinds of misconduct and are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#academic-integrity#exam-misconduct#chatgpt#vce#marks-reduced#consequential-response

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Victorian exam authority says student who used ChatGPT on a smuggled phone during a 2025 VCE exam admitted the breach and had marks reduced. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-victoria-vce-exam-student-used-chatgpt-on-smuggled-phone-marks-reduced-authority-says

BibTeX

@misc{2025_victoria_vce_exam_student_used_chatgpt_on_smuggled_phone_marks_reduced_authority_says,
  title = {Victorian exam authority says student who used ChatGPT on a smuggled phone during a 2025 VCE exam admitted the breach and had marks reduced},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-victoria-vce-exam-student-used-chatgpt-on-smuggled-phone-marks-reduced-authority-says}
}

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