Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MoE) is resuming the use of Zoom for home-based learning “progressively” with enhanced security in place

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The MoE temporarily suspended using Zoom last week, after security breaches during a lesson.

 

One of the breaches happened during a Geography lesson on the videoconferencing app. Two men appeared on-screen with obscene images and asked female students who were present to flash themselves according to the mother of one of the students.

 

Zoom, in response, says it is “deeply upset” by the incidents. It also reminded teachers to protect sessions using a password and take other security measures.

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The MoE adds that video conferencing platforms are now important tools for the teachers to engage their students, due to Singapore’s closure of its schools because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

The ministry confirms that this is why it is allowing teachers to “progressively resume” the use of Zoom with specific controls in place.

 

Fixing Zoom security breaches

In a statement, Zoom says it is working with Singapore’s MoE and together they will take these three steps to prevent a repeat of the incidents.

 

— Zoom will provide the MoE with control over educators’ accounts. This will allow the MoE to manage the default security settings more consistently

 

— The MoE will centrally restrict some of Zoom’s features that teachers can use. These features include; annotation, screen sharing, and whiteboard usage. The MoE says after it addresses the security concerns and users become familiar with the app, it “will progressively enable these features again.”

 

— Teachers will also now have to submit a form to the MoE after familiarising themselves with Zoom’s security features. After that, the MOE will permit them to carry out with live lessons.

 

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