Tax Accountant Exam ‘AI Glasses’ Suspicions: Can Search and Seizure Be Based on the Score Report Alone? [Everyday Life Turned Into a Case by Lawyer Won Hee-young]

[Financial News]
“I’m signing up for the tax law mock exam battle.” That was a comment on the blog of this year’s top scorer on the certified tax accountant exam. The commenter introduced themselves as a tax accountant from the 60th class. The candidate’s published score on the first-stage exam was 397.5 out of 400. They got one of the 160 questions wrong, in public finance. They earned a perfect score in Introduction to Tax Law, where the average among test takers was 30.18. Questions arose about whether such a score was possible when candidates had to answer 80 questions in 80 minutes in one session. Some also suggested the candidate might have worn artificial intelligence (AI) glasses.

On November 12, the Korean Association of Certified Public Tax Accountants called on the exam authorities to investigate the facts. The following day, the Human Resources Development Service of Korea disclosed what it had found so far. The candidate sat in the center of the second row from the front during the first-stage exam and in the center of the front row during the second-stage exam. All four proctors who supervised the two exams said they had seen no behavior that would raise suspicions of cheating. The candidate roster contained no unusual records, either. No irregularities were found in the computerized scoring data for the first-stage exam. Experts are reviewing the second-stage essay answers again.
Some called for the exam-site CCTV footage to be reviewed. But according to the Human Resources Development Service of Korea’s explanation on November 13, there were no CCTV cameras inside the classroom where the exam was held. Even if footage from a hallway showed someone wearing glasses, could the exam be invalidated solely because the frames resembled commercially available AI glasses? At the very least, it would have to be proven that the item the candidate had during the exam was a prohibited device.

Last May, during the Information Processing Engineer exam, a proctor found a camera lens and indicator light in a candidate’s glasses frame. The app on a phone connected to the glasses had a pre-entered command asking it to solve the questions. After conducting a forensic examination of the phone, police referred the candidate to prosecutors without detention on suspicion of obstructing business and violating the National Technical Qualifications Act.
The Human Resources Development Service of Korea, which administered the certified tax accountant exam, has no authority to forcibly access the successful candidate’s phone. For police to apply for a search and seizure warrant, there must be circumstances giving rise to suspicion of a crime. They must also establish the relevance of the materials and the necessity of the investigation. If a prosecutor requests a warrant, a judge decides whether to issue it.
For instance, if a candidate sitting nearby saw the recording indicator on the glasses frame during the exam, and there were also clues that the glasses were connected to a phone, police could specify photos of the question papers from the exam period and AI chat records in a warrant application. The materials the Human Resources Development Service of Korea had disclosed by the 13th in this certified tax accountant exam case contained no such clues. A score report alone is insufficient grounds for a search and seizure.

What happens if it comes to light after the results are announced that someone copied answers displayed on smart glasses? In the certified tax accountant exam, the Commissioner of the National Tax Service invalidates the exam. In the certified public accountant exam, the Financial Services Commission cancels the decision to pass. In both exams, those subject to the measure cannot take the exam again for five years from the date they receive it.
Smart glasses are also prohibited items at the exam venue for the College Scholastic Ability Test on November 19. People preparing for qualifications such as certified tax accountant, lawyer, and certified public accountant demonstrate skills they have built up over several years in just a few days. Students taking the CSAT have only one day. Our society has used scores from exams taken under those conditions to select who can go to university and to grant people the qualifications to work as professionals in various fields.
We could accept those results because we believed that if people answered the same questions at the same time, their scores reflected their individual abilities. Now, even when looking at an answer sheet, we find ourselves asking which answers the candidate worked out and where the answers supplied by AI through the glasses began. The most troubling thing about this controversy is that our society’s longstanding belief—that an exam can tell us how capable someone is—may collapse.
[About the Author]Lawyer Won Hee-young, formerly a reporter for Financial News, currently handles criminal cases at YK Law Firm. She graduated from Ewha Womans University and earned a master’s degree in journalism and information studies from Seoul National University Graduate School, before graduating from Ewha Womans University Law School. She examines the moments when ordinary life turns into a legal dispute and explains the key issues that shape the outcome of a case, along with practical ways to respond.
[email protected] Lee Hwan-joo Reporter