The  Zoom app has gained a lot of popularity around the world since lockdowns were imposed in many countries. Not only is it now used by millions of people around the world for work and leisure, but it has also been described and recommended as a great tool for teaching classes, including in Mauritius. However, as its global usage increased dramatically, many users discovered several security and privacy problems with it.

In a press conference two weeks ago, the minister of education, Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun, announced that two platforms – Microsoft 365 and Zoom – have been put in place by her ministry for teachers to conduct online classes and upload lessons for pupils from grade 10 to 13. The minister also encouraged teachers to submit their personal contact information and advised school rectors to share pupils’ contact information with their teachers in order to facilitate the process. Zoom has, in fact, been used by professionals and teachers in many countries that have been forced into lockdown because of the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. 

“In one secondary school in California, US, officials stated that they suspended the use of Zoom for their pupils after a ‘naked adult male using racial slurs’ intruded on a password-protected meeting on the app.”

In short, Zoom is an app that offers remote conferencing services and enables users to chat with each other via messages, audio and video calls. Zoom can also accommodate up to 100 people in one class or meeting in the free version, and up to 1,000 video participants and 10,000 viewers in the paid model. According to a report from the BBC, the maximum number of daily meeting participants on the app reached a whopping 200 million last month.

However, amidst Zoom’s ballooning global popularity, the company’s communication team has recently been plagued with security and privacy concerns about the app. In Singapore, authorities have suspended the use of the video-conferencing app by teachers after its minister of education publicly stated that “very serious incidents” occurred during the first few days of the Covid-19 lockdown that has seen schools switch to home-based learning. According to local media reports, the incidents involved strange men making inappropriate comments and obscene images appearing on screens during the streaming of a geography lesson with teenage girls.

In one secondary school in California, US, officials stated that they suspended the use of Zoom for their pupils after a “naked adult male using racial slurs” intruded on a password-protected meeting on the app. Public schools in New York City also moved to ban Zoom meetings, and other school systems later followed suit.

Germany and Taiwan have also put restrictions on Zoom use, and last week, Google banned the popular videoconferencing app from its employees’ devices, citing its “security vulnerabilities” and warning that Zoom would stop working on employee laptops immediately. The app has also been criticised over several privacy issues, including falsely claiming that the tool had end-to-end encryption, sending user data to Facebook and allowing meeting hosts to track participants.

The Federal Trade Commission – an independent American agency responsible for the enforcement of civil US antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection – has also received numerous calls to investigate Zoom including from lawmakers, who have expressed alarm over the app’s privacy and security shortcomings.

Following the backlash, the Zoom chief executive officer, Eric Yuan, was forced to apologise in a public blog for “falling short” on security issues and promised to address concerns. In his defence, he stated that the use of the videoconferencing app has soared in ways that his team could never have predicted before the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“As of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, was approximately 10 million. In March this year, we reached more than 200 million. Despite working around the clock to support the influx of new users, the service has fallen short of the community's – and our own – privacy and security expectations. For that, I am deeply sorry,” he admitted in the blog post. “We did not design the product with the foresight that, in a matter of weeks, every person in the world would suddenly be working, studying, and socialising from home. We now have a much broader set of users who are utilising our product in a myriad of unexpected ways presenting us with challenges we did not anticipate when the platform was conceived.”

Commenting on the app security and privacy concerns, a teacher who has been working in a private secondary school in Mauritius for over 20 years, said that he wasn’t surprised.

“I’m not surprised that the government advised teachers to use this app without addressing its issues. I haven’t used the app myself and I’m not going to. I’ve never used this kind of technology during my whole career, and I won’t be forced to use something that firstly, I’m not familiar with to teach my pupils and secondly, has been banned by schools in other countries because of security concerns,” he told Weekly.

In fact, many teachers are also sceptical about the measures announced by the minister of education which, they said in a letter sent by their union to Dookun-Luchoomun, are “unclear, unexplained and inconceivable”.

“Educators and their trade unions have not been consulted on these decisions. The union has been receiving a laundry list of questions from its members seeking appropriate instructions. You may rest assured that the stand of your ministry regarding grade 10 to 13 has left educators in confusion,” the letter sent by the Secondary and Preparatory School Teachers and Other Staff Union read. “Passing on details of pupils to educators and vice-versa is also in breach of the Data Protection Act in as much as this is tantamount to an inroad into the privacy of personal information.”

On that note, the members of the union also called the minister’s attention to the many security vulnerabilities of the app, which have been reported in many countries. Not only could the users’ contact information be shared inadvertently with other users, the members said in the letter, but the app could also enable hackers to take over the camera of a device while a user is using Zoom.

As an alternative, the union members suggest television programmes for pupils of grades 10 to 13 as well, and access to a website, on which educators will be able to send video lessons for broadcasting on television and for pupils to view.

In an official communiqué, the members of the Union of Private Secondary Education Employees also urged the government to allow television programmes for  grades 10 to 13 pupils to avoid any discrimination and inequality for pupils from vulnerable groups who don’t have access to a computer or internet facilities.

<p>Zoom is an app that can be downloaded on a computer or mobile device for free. In order to use the app, users have to sign in by creating an account or by using an existing one from Google or Facebook. Up to 100 people can join an online class or meeting in the free version of the app, and a user can join a Zoom class or meeting by signing into the app or by accepting an email invite.</p>

<p>Those who have an account on Zoom need to enter a unique Meeting ID and their username to join a meeting or class.&nbsp; Users can also enter a meeting or class by just providing the correct Meeting ID without signing into their account.</p>

<p>Those who don&rsquo;t have the app can also join a meeting or class by clicking on the link provided in an email invitation, which will then redirect them to Zoom and the meeting.</p>