A growing number of UK university students are cheating in exams with the help of technological devices such as mobile phones, smart watches and hidden earpieces.

Data obtained by the Guardian through freedom of information requests found a 42% rise in cheating cases involving technology over the last four years – from 148 in 2012 to 210 in 2016. Last year, a quarter of all students caught cheating used electronic devices.

Among the worst offenders were students at Queen Mary University of London, where there were 54 instances of cheating – two-thirds of which involved technology. At the University of Surrey, 19 students were caught in 2016, 12 of them with devices. Newcastle University, one the bigger institutions to provide data, reported 91 cases of cheating – 43% of which involved technology.

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