LeetCode proctoring: what contests, interviews and assessments record

Start with the fact that removes most of the anxiety: LeetCode has no proctoring product. No LeetCode documentation describes webcam capture, screen recording, tab tracking or a lockdown application on any part of the platform. The integrity tooling it does document applies to one surface, its rated Weekly and Biweekly Contests, and consists of a plagiarism checker, a keystroke-level Code Replay, and human review of every flagged case.

There are three surfaces and none of them is a proctored test. Contests are rated competitions with written rules: no multiple accounts, no similar code across accounts, no leaking solutions, and no external help including code generation tools. Detection is similarity plus review, which is why rankings take days to finalize. Penalties are fixed: a first violation zeroes the contest score, resets LeetCoins and bans you from contests and Discuss for a month; a second is permanent deactivation without appeal. LeetCode Interview is a live WebRTC call with a shared editor where an interviewer sees, hears and reads your code in real time; LeetCode documents no stored recording. Mock Assessment is a Premium practice feature nobody else sees.

Code Replay is the one behavioral record LeetCode keeps. Introduced in 2025 and extended in 2026 with editor activity status, it replays what happened inside the contest editor in order. It is not documented as tracking anything outside the editor: no tabs, no clipboard, no camera.

The phrase that causes the most confusion is "LeetCode OA". When a recruiter or a forum thread says a company's online assessment is LeetCode, it almost always means the questions resemble LeetCode problems. The test itself runs on HackerRank, CodeSignal or another vendor with its own proctoring, and the domain in the invitation link tells you which. If the link is not leetcode.com, that vendor's rules are the ones that matter.

LeetCode's privacy policy is short and old; it lists persistent identifiers and session cookies and says no other personal information is collected. The terms of service add one identity clause: you may be asked for proof of identity to confirm you match your account.

The posts below cover each question on its own: whether LeetCode is proctored, whether it detects cheating and how the contest rules work, whether it tracks tab switching or copy-paste, whether it records your screen or webcam, and what a LeetCode online assessment actually is. Facts are current as of September 2026.