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Ioana Guset

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Ioana focuses her practice on litigation matters. Prior to joining Taft, she was a law clerk for Justice John B. Simon in the Illinois Appellate Court, First District.

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As we discussed before, educational institutions are closing campuses and are meeting legal obligations to educate their students by conducting online schooling. Now, some school districts across the country are banning teachers from using Zoom for online schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic due to security and privacy issues surrounding the videoconferencing app.  Reported cases of classroom “Zoombombings” included an incident where hackers broke into a class meeting and displayed a swastika on students’ screens, which led the FBI to issue a public warning about Zoom’s security vulnerabilities. New York City School District and Nevada Clark Public Schools disabled Zoom access, while schools in Utah and Washington State are reassessing its use at the time of this posting.

Amid the raised safety concerns, Zoom responded and advised schools to protect video calls with passwords and to lock down meeting security with currently available privacy features in the software. On March 18, 2020, Zoom added a privacy policy specific for K-12 schools and districts stating that it is “designed to reflect our compliance” with student privacy laws and also posted best practices for teachers to use.Continue Reading COVID-19 Bulletin: ZOOM Challenges Provide Timely Reminder about Need for Diligence in Managing Privacy and Security and Student Data

With at least 70% of American schools shutting down, and others, if not all, to follow, school and millions of parents are faced with unprecedented challenges managing the children’s education from children’s homes through online schooling. Online schooling or “distance learning” presents not only operational and technical challenges of its own, but also presents concerns and challenges to properly protecting the privacy and security of student information. Even in view of a pandemic and emergency conditions, schools and online education providers are still required to meet legal obligations under various laws and implement best practices to not only meet the laws’ requirements but also to foster a secure environment for students to learn. The following provides a summary of the applicable federal and state laws impacting online learning, followed by general best practices.
Continue Reading COVID-19 Bulletin: Online Schooling Data Privacy Concerns and Best Practices During the Pandemic