Given the University of Waterloo’s status as one of the world’s most technologically renowned schools, it’s no surprise a high-profile bout of alleged cheating has a computerized component.

School officials allege that a 20-year-old female student hired a 21-year-old man – himself a student at York University in Toronto – to write a math exam for her.

To get around the obvious issue of a man impersonating a woman, the man was allegedly provided with a fake student ID containing her name, but his picture.

However, somebody had tipped the school off that those methods might be used to cheat on that particular exam.

As a result, school employees went around the room, swiping each student ID card to ensure its legitimacy.

“As we went around the exam room, swiping cards … one of the students got up to leave before the allotted time,” Waterloo spokesperson Nick Manning told CTV News.

“It’s at that point that the police made an arrest.”

Tech industry analyst Carmi Levy says students are constantly coming up with new and innovative ways to use technology to game the education system.

“Students who want to cheat have always tried to use technology to stay one step ahead of the schools,” he said.

“It’s a never-ending process … and it’s probably never going to stop.”

The emergence of smartwatches presents another new hurdle for schools, and Levy recommends they come up with policies to integrate technology into learning, rather than ban it outright – especially as students constantly find ways to get around those bans.

“Sometimes it might actually make sense to integrate a smartphone or integrate a tablet into the curriculum,” he said.

In some schools, retina and fingerprint scanning are being introduced to verify students’ identities.

Methods used to detect cheating can vary from program to program.

Computer science students, for example, have their code checked against other students’ to see if anyone has been duplicating work.

“Plagiarism gets caught really, really quickly in computer science,” said student Tristan Potter.

It’s harder to cheat when your major is theatre – as Tyler Collins’ is – but he says he’s seen some students in other disciplines use questionable studying methods, and admits to being tempted himself.

“If you’re the one who’s cheating, than you’re the one who pays the consequences,” he said.

“When you’re spending $20,000 a year to be at a place, you don’t want to see that go up in flames for nothing.”

Kaiwen Qian appeared in a Kitchener court Wednesday, charged with personation and uttering a forged document.

She was released on $3,000 bail.