Privacy Implications of Video Conferencing From Home

If you have recently started referring to your bedroom as your home office, you should probably read this post.

Overnight, COVID-19 has changed the office landscape. Companies who were once averse to employees working from home are now advising their employees to telework. Zoom, Webex, Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams, and other such collaboration tools are becoming part of the home office. That often includes video conferencing on the desktop and mobile devices.

Initiating or joining video conferencing calls, while working from home, can have privacy implications that are not well understood.

It’s true that video conferencing applications have become ubiquitous in the office and in the consumer domain. From executives in boardrooms using high-end hardware-based video conferencing systems to grandmothers communicating with their grandchildren over WhatsApp, meetings have gone virtual. However, a business call that involves video conferencing, especially from home, requires a few additional checks to ensure your privacy. 

The video conferencing privacy settings covered below are basic. However, neglecting them can have embarrassing consequences. 

The generic settings discussed in this post pertain to video conferencing applications such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, and others like them. The specific settings of individual applications are not covered here.

So, here are five basic video conferencing privacy settings that you should know about. 

Don’t initiate a video call when you are not ready

This should be a no-brainer. 

However, this privacy setting is often overlooked by some users. If the default setting for video within your collaboration application is set to “on,” you may want to switch it to “off.” You don’t want to inadvertently initiate a video conferencing call from home when all you need is a voice call. Most users overcome this issue by using a webcam cover that they only remove when they are ready and presentable. If you forget to cover the camera after a video conferencing call, your video setting will ensure your privacy.

The other participants don’t need to see your clutter

If your home office is in your bedroom, or you have clutter that you don’t want participants in the call to see, this feature is for you. 

A customized background in Zoom

With the right blur setting, you can pick from neutral backgrounds to the backdrop of a beach somewhere where you would rather be. With this feature, you can avoid turning your laptop in different directions to shield parts of your home office from being visible during video conferencing calls. This basic video conferencing privacy setting is currently available on most enterprise-grade collaboration applications in the market and is easy to apply.

Share only what you intent to

This setting is not specific to video conferencing.

If you use collaboration tools to share presentations, spreadsheets, or other documents during a video call, that would involve sharing your screen. Sharing just the application would ensure that notifications on your desktop are not visible to the other participants on the call. 

Your wife’s note asking you to pick up milk and eggs may be more information than you want to share.

Your boss knows when you are not paying attention

Attention tracking is a relatively new feature that is not yet available in all video conferencing applications. 

Attention tracking ensures that the host of the video conference knows who on the call is paying attention and who are the ones working on other applications. So, if you were planning to work on an RFP while your boss shares the results from the company’s recent employee survey, you may want to think twice. From the hyperlink above, you can see that this is a setting that you can adjust as long as your Administrator gives you the right to do it.

On April 9th, 2020, I received a communication from Zoom that lists the following change to their video conferencing privacy settings.

Remove Attendee Attention Tracking Feature
Zoom has removed the attendee attention tracker feature as part of our commitment to the security and privacy of our customers. For more background on this change and how we are pivoting during these unprecedented times, please see a note from our CEO, Eric S. Yuan.

You can download the full communication here.

Even sidebar chats are not private

This is another feature that is not broadly available across video conferencing applications.

With Zoom’s cloud recording feature, paid users will have the ability to record all chats during a video conferencing call and store it in the cloud for future reference. Users may not fully understand the privacy ramifications of this feature. Technically, this could mean that any chat exchanges within the video conferencing application become subject to oversight. If you send a chat message to your colleague during a video call asking him or her to join you for a beer after work, that message will no longer be truly private.

So there. 

Hopefully, these video conferencing privacy settings will be of use to you while you are working from home. 

Meanwhile, let’s follow the physical distancing guidelines provided by our respective health agencies.

Let’s stay safe and beat COVID-19. 

A version of this post was first published in Reboot Social.