“Changes in lighting can flag your test for a violation,” the guidelines say. And, “Even stretching, looking away, or leaning down to pick up your pencil could flag your test.”

Once students finish their exams, their instructors can log on to a server to review video clips of the incidents the system has flagged as possible infractions.

Jeffrey Alan Johnson, assistant director of institutional effectiveness and planning at Utah Valley University, compared Proctortrack’s approach to a controversial T.S.A. airport security screening program intended to identify terrorists; the government’s list of suspicious behavior included gazing down and excessive yawning, according to a document obtained by The Intercept.

“We are seeing similar things with Proctortrack,” said Mr. Johnson, who has conducted research on information technologies and social justice. “It’s built on this belief that human behavior can be reduced to an algorithm and, if you deviate from that behavior, it’s a problem.”

Peter Gambino, a Rutgers sophomore, first heard about Proctortrack after he had enrolled in an online music theory course. His professor emailed the class saying that Proctortrack was “a brand-new requirement this semester” for certain online courses and that students would have to pay a fee of $37 to use it.

Mr. Gambino said he would not have taken the course had Rutgers informed students of the details in advance.

“It would be a much different thing if this surveillance was being imposed on anyone other than the students, effectively with no notice,” Mr. Gambino said. “I’m pretty sure that teachers would quit outright if they had to grade papers in the privacy of their own homes and be monitored and be forced to pay for it out of their own pocket.”