ZOOM: Zoom has been licensed by the Province of BC for all K-12 Students and Teachers. Recently Zoom has come under scrutiny for its privacy and security with concerns raised about vulnerabilities not being closed quickly enough that would allow hackers to execute malicious activities and access personal data. Acknowledging that no system will ever be 100% secure, we are supporting and recommending the use of the Zoom tool, as has the BC Government. We will however continue to monitor that the vendor is being diligent about security and privacy risks that become exposed. Some important precautions you can take to respect student and parent privacy when using Zoom are:
1. To include a password for all meetings so that you cannot be “Zoombombed” by outside people who somehow get access to your meeting link.
2. Request that students turn on a virtual background when using the system (provided their technology can support the feature)
3. If a virtual background cannot be used, suggest that the computer or iPad be situated to face a blank wall or private space rather than looking into a bedroom, family room, kitchen or other area of a home that should remain private to the family. 4. Teach participants to turn off their microphone and to keep video off when not needed in the learning process.
What about students' privacy? Can't Zoom be easily hacked?
Zoom is being used around the world to support education, businesses and governments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Zoom enterprise (business) application provided to school districts has robust security features meet B.C. government standards.
These features are not available on the free version of the application.
The enterprise application of Zoom has been reviewed by government as part of its review of applications used by public sector organizations.
School technology administrators can control permissions and privileges, while disabling features that are unnecessary or inappropriate.
Students will be given a unique web site address so they can access their virtual classroom, without needing an individual account.
And the Zoom server will be based in Canada, with added encryption so it is a safe tool.