No Free Lunch: The Global Privacy Expectations of Video Teleconference Providers [telecom]

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by Lisa R. Lifshitz

While the availability of video-conferencing technology has proven to be a boon for many given the challenges of working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of such technology is not without privacy and security risks. Unfortunately some users have fallen victim to so-called "zoom bombing" or "zoom raiding" incidents whereby their business meetings were hijacked by Internet trolls or hackers that inserted racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, and/or profane imagery on their screens and chat boxes or otherwise disrupted their audio feeds. Many video teleconferencing platform providers were seemingly caught unawares, scrambling to shore up their security settings by hastily releasing updates in order to patch critical vulnerabilities and convince users that they could continue online collaboration safely without fear of unwanted intruders.