Police plan to refer to prosecutors an 18-year-old man for allegedly using camera-equipped smart glasses to cheat on an entrance exam at Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University, investigative sources said Wednesday.
The Tokyo resident, who was a senior high school student at the time of the alleged offense, could be charged with "obstructing operations" of the private university by taking images of exam papers and posting them on social media with his smartphone on Feb. 16 during the entrance test for the School of Creative Science and Engineering.
The suspect allegedly sought assistance from people on X, formerly known as Twitter, and answered questions based on their responses, according to the sources.
The man said during voluntary questioning that he was worried he may not get into a university after performing poorly on standardized tests and being rejected by national universities, they said.
The case came to light after a person who responded to one of his questions online contacted Waseda University.
The university consulted the police after he appeared for another exam for a different faculty on Feb. 21 and an official noticed a small camera in the frame of his glasses. Neither of the faculties has admitted the man.
"Since the student was found to have cheated, we have invalidated his exam results," a university spokesperson said.
Waseda University's entrance exam guidelines require examinees to turn off communications-capable electronic devices and store them in bags, including mobile phones and wearable devices.
The latest case is a part of a broader issue of examinees' attempting to cheat on university entrance examinations.
In January 2022, a female student was referred to prosecutors for allegedly sending an image of a world history question in a unified university entrance exam to members of a tutoring site in hopes of receiving help.
A Chinese national who passed an entrance exam for Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo the same month was later found guilty of business obstruction after recording math exam questions with a micro camera and posting them on social media to solicit answers.
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