A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human. "CAPTCHA" is a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart", trademarked by Carnegie Mellon University. The process involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade, but not able to solve on its own. Because computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human.

The term CAPTCHA was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper (all of Carnegie Mellon University), and John Langford (then of IBM). A common type of CAPTCHA requires that the user type the letters of a distorted image, sometimes with the addition of an obscured sequence of letters or digits that appears on the screen.

The sum CAPTCHA is a kind of CAPTCHA that is handicap accessible. With most CAPTCHAs using images there is no way for anyone who is blind or def to access the website. This prevents machines from submitting the form, and is easy enough to do so that anyone can submit the form without really thinking about it (it's easier to read too!).