Canvas Privacy Protection — Amy N

Tired of unfair academic integrity accusations based on faulty Canvas quiz logs? Many instructors misinterpret Canvas's official data, leading to honest students being falsely accused of cheating just for switching tabs or minimizing a window.

Canvas Privacy Protection is your shield against these misleading metrics. This extension overrides Canvas's page visibility detection by making your browser always appear focused and visible to the website. It blocks the specific event listeners that detect when you leave a website, minimize the page, or lose focus, ensuring the page always reports itself as "visible" and "focused." This means:
No more false "tab-switching" logs: Your browser will always appear to be actively focused on Canvas, preventing misinterpretations of legitimate study habits, interference from browser tab offloading, notifications, bathroom breaks, and more.

Protection against flawed data: We ensure your Canvas experience aligns with Canvas's own documentation, which states that "Quiz logs should not be used to validate academic integrity or identify occurrences of cheating."
What this extension does NOT do:

It does not interfere with other Canvas functionality or logging.

It does not provide any unfair academic advantage.

Instructors can still see essential data like your IP address, device identifiers, and how long you spend on each question.

Enhanced Privacy Beyond Canvas

We go a step further! This extension also provides crucial guidance to protect your privacy on Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Did you know document owners can see your view history on enterprise Google accounts? This feature has also been misused to falsely accuse students.

We'll guide you through simple, manual steps to disable these Google view history settings, helping you maintain your privacy. Our extension will even alert you with a warning banner if you view Google documents before you've disabled these settings, ensuring you're always protected.

Additionally, we allow users to set the extension to run on any page they want by making those sites also always appear focused. There are many use cases for wanting to make a website think you are focused such as preventing session timeouts, ensuring continuous live updates on dashboards or news feeds, avoiding automatic video or audio pauses when switching tabs, and maintaining optimal performance for complex web applications or browser-based games.

For maximal privacy, we always recommend saving all course materials locally! Canvas even has an export course feature to help you do this.

Install Canvas Privacy Protection today and take control of your academic privacy!

Educational and Privacy Purpose Only!
This extension is designed solely to protect user privacy and prevent misinterpretation of flawed tracking data. It is NOT intended to circumvent academic integrity measures or violate any institutional policies.

User Responsibility
By installing this extension, you acknowledge that:

You will comply with all applicable academic policies at your institution

You will not use this extension to violate any terms of service, honor codes, or academic integrity policies

You are solely responsible for understanding and following your institution's rules regarding browser extensions and privacy tools

Use of this extension during exams or assessments may violate your institution's policies

No Circumvention Intent
This extension addresses Canvas's own documented position that "Quiz logs should not be used to validate academic integrity or identify occurrences of cheating." It is designed to prevent false accusations based on unreliable data, not to enable any form of academic dishonesty. We encourage instructors to use Canvas's built in features such as LockDown Browser®, and/or external proctoring tools such as Proctorio®.

No Warranty or Liability
This extension is provided "as-is" without any warranties. The developer assumes no responsibility for any consequences resulting from the use of this extension, including but not limited to academic disciplinary actions. The author of this extension has never used it in any academic context.

By installing this extension, you agree to use it responsibly and in accordance with all applicable rules and regulations.

This extension does not collect any user data.

SOURCE CODE: https://github.com/burner162/CanvasPrivacy/