As Fletcher School operations have moved online, we’ve all become familiar with using the videoconferencing platform Zoom. At the same time, we’ve no doubt spotted the news headlines popping up about the company’s privacy and security issues. It is apparent that Zoom was not prepared to go from 10 million to 200 million users in less than three months, and that their development practices emphasized ease of use, not security. The intense spotlight has shown that they have made serious oversights.
Zoom executives have been admitting to their missteps and appear to be reacting responsibly. They have suspended all new feature development so their technical staff can focus exclusively on security and privacy (for the next three months). For more information, read Zoom’s Security statement and Zoom’s Privacy Policy.
While Tufts does have a nondisclosure agreement with Zoom, it is still prudent for us to take measures to protect the integrity of our classes/meetings and Zoom recordings. There are settings we can change to protect against “Zoombombing” and practices we can implement to prevent our recordings from getting into unintended hands. For step-by-step instructions on all aspects of using Zoom, see Tufts Educational Technology Services’ Zoom Guide. For more information about using Zoom at Tufts, check out our Zoom video tutorials.
Quick Tips
- Schedule your classes through Canvas and ask students to log into Canvas to join the meeting. Uninvited guests will be easier to spot if students are joining via Canvas.
- Have people register to attend events, or require a password.
- Disable sharing content in settings via tufts.zoom.us (you can enable sharing to individuals during meeting).
- Hosts: disable Private Chat in settings. Attendees: don’t chat something you do not want others to read. If the chat is saved all comments made, to everyone and privately, are recorded on the saved chat.