Listening comprehension. Moscow authorities remotely install hidden audio‑surveillance software across city classrooms

Since 2022,computers and interactive whiteboards across schools in the Russian capital have run on an operating system developed for the Moscow Electronic School platform, built on a distribution of the open-source Linux operating system.

On the classroom panels,the researcher uncovered both the module itself—an RPM package named mesh-agent-lesson-log, a standard software-installer bundle used on Linux systems—and a log of network commands showing how it was pushed to the boards via the Department of Information Technology’s (DIT) remote administration system.

Two versions of the package exist: an early build (0.1.3) and the current release (1.1.0). In the software’s descriptive metadata, the earlier version was explicitly titled “Lesson audio-recording agent” and was not rolled out widely. The latest release carries a far more neutral title, “Agent supporting lesson delivery”, with all references to audio recording removed.

The package installs a daemon—a background process that runs silently without user interaction or any visible indicator on the screen. In the current release (1.1.0), it polls a central server for instructions every 10 minutes, activates the microphone on its own to capture classroom audio, and uploads the recording to DIT’s server infrastructure before deleting the local copy from the device’s memory.

“Across three boards in different schools, the dnf history shows the package being installed and updated between August and October 2026”, the researcher wrote.

According to the author, neither school staff nor pupils have been officially informed that the panels record audio without alerting users, although some teachers may have heard about the practice through rumors.

A source in Moscow’s school system told Mediazona that interactive whiteboards aren’t the only classroom devices recording audio. Laptops from the “Mostech” ecosystem have the same capability.

According to the source, every piece of equipment is assigned to a specific classroom and a specific staff member, and the system automatically logs who is being recorded and when. The original plan was to have AI analyse the recordings, but the results so far have been poor, so the system will be retrained with human input.

Officially, the feature exists to check whether what’s actually taught in class matches the standard lesson schedule.

The software package remained publicly accessible online at the time of publication, allowing Mediazona to download and inspect its contents.

Moscow’s Department of Information Technology did not respond to a request for comment.

Updated on 15:42 GMT. Added information from a Mediazona source.