The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has already issued a comprehensive advisory cautiously advising students, parents and the media against spreading or believing in misinformation about QR codes on question papers. The board explained that they are not web links that can be clicked and that they are only applied in its internal system as a form of authentication, tracking, and integrity of examinations. The advisory published later on Thursday only shows the intended text when scanned on the QR codes but not to a site or external content.
The explanation is given as a consequence of the confusion brought by the presence of the QR codes on the Class 12 history paper on March 30, which made some students think that the codes were some kind of hidden web links. It was reported that users would manually search the QR code text on the internet and arrive at irrelevant search results, such as references to social media influencer Orry. The paper had three QR codes: paper code (61501), first three letters of the subject (HHIISSTT), and last three letters of the subject (OOORRRYYY). Search engines would automatically correct the misspelled words to Orry when they were typed in search engines as the distorted text of OOORRRYYY.
Orry himself reacted to the Instagram viral incident by jokingly referring to it as a very big and very good honour to be asked to be on a national exam paper. He said that he was proud to be included in Indian history, literary and metaphorically speaking. CBSE noted that students and media need to use the official information and not speculate that the QR codes are technical actions aimed at keeping the examination standards high and not aimed at communication with the public.
The occurrence underscores the necessity of digital literacy in learners and the need to be sure of information before posting it online.