Zoom lessons and safeguarding

[Stellamboscha]

Just wondering what the safeguarding implications are of Zoom lessons since any parent or indeed any other adult could be in the room when a child is being taught by Zoom and therefore see and hear other children in the class who could be giving information that would identify them to that adult which the adult could then use to track the child down and use that info to gain their confidence?

On Zoom it needn't be, as you can set a background (I don't know if teachers are telling pupils thus, but they should be, and DS has certainly been told)

Teachers should also be aware of the need to structure lessons to reduce the change of a pupil going off-topic with personal information, and being ready to use the 'mute' function on anything that could be going in an iffy direction.

As long as the teacher is competent (and the vast majority are) then Zoom can be used safely

Given the lockdown, the only people who should be in the room (or, indeed, anywhere else in the house/flat) will be those the child lives with. It would be surprising if they don't already know the other children in the class. And, as the pp says, teachers should stop pupils going off-topic and sharing personal information.

Lots of schools and individual teachers are jumping on the zoom bandwagon having given very little consideration to safeguarding. There’s no official guidance, unions warn against it and it is very concerning.

Two meetings of education officials (a union and a school leader one) were both recently ‘zoombombed’ with racism and pornography, suggesting that those who are not being extremely careful and working under close direction of their school are putting themselves and their students in a vulnerable position.

It’s not good enough to say ‘I reckon it will be fine’ re other adults in the room etc. There needs to be proper risk assessment.

As long as the teacher is competent (and the vast majority are) then Zoom can be used safely

From a cyber-security point of view, this is absolutely not the case. Zoom's security has holes in it you could drive a bus through, including (but not limited to):

Zoom's privacy policy gives them the right to share your personal data with 3rd party marketing firms.
Zoom's app for IOS shares your data with Facebook
Zoom's meetings can be gate-crashed by people who have found the meeting ID of open meetings
Zoom comms is not fully end-to-end encrypted.
The Zoom installer for MacOS uses a misleading prompt to gain 'root' access to Macs without actual consent. The installation process could be hacked to take control of your camera and microphone.
Zoom chats are vulnerable to attack by malware which can send your username and password to the hacker's machine, or execute malicious code on your local machine.

So yeah, just a few safeguarding concerns.

Zoom's privacy policy gives them the right to share your personal data with 3rd party marketing firms

No it doesn't. They specifically say that they don't sell your data and will not share it without your consent. However, if you join a webinar you are providing your data to the host of the webinar.

Zoom's app for IOS shares your data with Facebook

They've fixed that.

Zoom's meetings can be gate-crashed by people who have found the meeting ID of open meetings

True, as noblegiraffe reports. It is too easy to zoombomb a meeting.

Zoom comms is not fully end-to-end encrypted

Also true. Furthermore, their encryption is not particularly strong.

The Zoom installer for MacOS uses a misleading prompt to gain 'root' access to Macs without actual consent. The installation process could be hacked to take control of your camera and microphone

They fixed this a couple of days ago. The researcher who found the vulnerability says he is impressed with the new implementation.

Zoom chats are vulnerable to attack by malware which can send your username and password to the hacker's machine, or execute malicious code on your local machine

Also fixed.

There are definitely security concerns about Zoom. They seem to be working hard to fix them, which is why some of the information in the previous post is out of date. I wouldn't use them myself as I think there are better implementations available.

I agree with noblegiraffe that, whatever conferencing system is used, there needs to be a proper risk assessment. Under the current lockdown, strange adults being in the room with the child is much less of an issue than it would be at more normal times. But there are plenty of other reasons to be cautious.

In terms of adults in the room I assume you mean other adults that the teacher lives with? It used to be the case that 'disqualification by association' applied to school staff where they had to disclose if they lived with somebody who had convictions (including spent ones) for particular crimes, now that only applies to domestic situations such as child minders. In theory it'd apply to teachers now working from home but obviously that's not in the regulations because this situation is unprecendented - nobody would have expected teachers to be working from home.

I'm not surprised that the unions are concerned.

Our school have said no after researching it. Most near us use google classrooms if anything with very strict rules.

Unions are very anti live streaming of any sort for primary and are advising against it. . Safeguarding risks along the lines of staff being expected to ‘broadcast’ in their own homes to children in their own homes which risks a lack of boundaries. There’s also a risk of a session being recorded and manipulated or shared on social media which is out of the teacher’s control. Aside from the sg risks, it also puts the teacher under the spotlight when all the parents are present too and could lead to parents discussing the teachers input afterwards. It also exposes children’s abilities to other parents. I will not be expecting my staff to do it. If you are asked to do it, make sure your Acceptable Use policy is updated and rigorous, and shared with parents.

My son attends online zoom lessons and I'm fine with it - he's always safe online anyway and nothing's happening in the lessons which I would mind being public. I can understand why a teacher would feel more on display - but these are exceptional times so some compromise is inevitable.

I think Pud2 is spot on. Things like music lessons or tutoring I get, with an adult around but not whole class stuff at all

I'd also add from experience of other zoom stuff, the fact that you are viewing others homes is a bit wierd if it's people you don't really know.
My DD tonday pointed out that some one (on a non school zoom) had parents in PJs in background and another had two adults in the room who were not immediate family that they live with ....

Zoom's meetings can be gate-crashed by people who have found the meeting ID of open meetings

There are ways around this when we use zoom at work , you can have a meeting where everyone goes into a waiting room first and only enters the meeting when invited into the room, or once all attendees are in you can lock the meeting,

Zoom's meetings can be gate-crashed by people who have found the meeting ID of open meetings

School has sent an email out saying after Easter pupils will have to go through a second step of logging in through the school system.

This is a bad idea for a whole host of reasons. We have categorically been told not to do it.

We can send video lessons and have Q&A sessions on Teams but we are not to have children meeting with us by video link.

I have no idea why pre-recording a video lesson and then uploading that isn’t seen as enough for some schools and parents.

That said I hate FaceTime at the best of times.

@WhyCantIThinkOfAGoodOne

I can understand why a teacher would feel more on display - but these are exceptional times so some compromise is inevitable.

What is the compromise?

My son does a zoom PE lesson. I'm really uncomfortable with it. Perhaps it depends on classmates in how comfortable you are. None of the parents have necessarily had a dbs check and suddenly they are in your home. I know you can take measures to anonymise but not all families do. I just think of thst county lines and how they become z cuckoo in one famiky and can not sit just put of view with access to all the others storing up info.

I'm a teacher. I'm also hearing impaired. Doing a live lesson with a large group of children would be a nightmare for me. Video often lags a little and I rely on lip reading to help me hear. Background noise from their end would also not help. I'd spend my whole time muting and unmuting and asking pupils to repeat themselves. Parents would think I was an idiot who couldn't teach.

I am so glad I don't have to do this and I don't care if parents think I'm not "compromising". I'm doing my damned best in the circumstances, okay?

DH is a secondary teacher - his school won't do live lessons.

Our kids are primary age and their school also won't do it for all of the reasons listed above.

Dh's university have said that individual lecturers will be liable for any GDPR issues that arise from teaching via Zoom.

An absolute no for us.

Lots of reasons stated above but also a grammar school in the area was doing zoom lessons and students were taking photos of their teachers and creating all sorts of really offensive memes / cartoons etc and uploading them. Why should staff be subjected to that kind of thing? Of course none of it is proven and trying to remotely investigate is hopeless.

Google classroom will have to do.