The following is a guide of actions to be taken in the case of suspected or alleged cheating at a hackathon. To ensure fairness and uphold the spirit of hacking, MLH has a thorough process for reviewing projects when concerns about authenticity arise.
Concerns about potential cheating must be handled discreetly. Please refrain from making public accusations about suspected cheating on Discord, Slack, Reddit, or any other public forum. Public accusations, doxxing, encouraging others to target a team (“brigading”), or “witch hunts” can severely damage the event’s atmosphere and unfairly harm individuals, especially if the investigation ultimately finds no evidence of cheating.
If you’re at an in-person event, you should have an MLHer on-site. If you’re at a digital event, your MLHers should be reachable through the event’s communication platform (typically Slack or Discord). Your MLHer is responsible for addressing accusations of cheating and following MLH’s procedures. If someone comes to you with a concern, you should politely connect them with your MLHer for further resolution.
Below are the rough steps that MLHers will go through.
Your MLHer will review the project in question themselves to evaluate its authenticity. They have additional resources from MLH that they may choose to use if needed (like their on-call staff). They will ask the team questions as necessary, such as those available in our guide.
Please keep in mind that submission platforms have additional information that may not be available on the public project listing. Extra submission questions not visible to the public may be used for extra context when completing the investigation.
While the codebase needs to be visible, it can (and should!) protect sensitive information. API keys, database credentials, and similar secrets should be kept out of the repository, typically by using a .gitignore file and environment variables. The core project code, however, must be public. Any attempt to circumvent the review process by hiding evidence (for example, making a repository private that was required to be public) can result in disqualification. This includes making the repository private after the event ends.
Your MLHer will make a decision and work with your team to ensure everyone is in agreement about it. They may then choose to hide the project from the submission platform or remove the project from judging.
Regardless of their immediate resolution, the MLHer will centralize their response by notifying our team at cheating@mlh.io. After MLH does a full investigation, which may involve reaching out to the hacker post-event, MLH may additionally issue a warning or ban depending on severity and history. Hackers who repeatedly cheat or attempt to do so are permanently banned from participation in MLH hackathons.
If a project is reported post-event and found to be cheating after the investigation is concluded, the hacker/s may be asked to return the prize/s, and a new winner will be picked.
Last Revised: 2025-07-23