NYC Education department reverses ban on Zoom

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many schools and academic institutions have been shut down to avoid the spread of the virus. Amidst the pandemic, the application that boomed and became popular was Zoom. But a few privacy concerns, had led to the ban of the application. But the New York City Schools are once again allowing the usage of Zoom to help children with online lea rning. The announcement was made by the NYC Department of Education on May 6, 2020. The usage of Zoom was banned on April 4, 2020 due to privacy and security concerns regarding usage of the software.

But then Zoom was quick to make a few changes that addresses the concerns of the city school as the students need some help in terms of a tool. A letter was issued from the NYC Department of Education Chancellor Richard A. Carranza to families, schools as well as students who can now have access to the account of the central NYC Department of Education account. However, it will also have some data encryption and some storage settings that the district had requested the online application to implement for all of its users.

Carranza in the letter said that the new agreement with Zoom will provide a way to its children to connect with the schools, staff members and teachers. The letter also mentioned that they are excited to have another safe option that can be used by the school authorities during the testing time. The NYC department will here after have a control on who can participate and even the guests can join the virtual classrooms along with additional controls over every meeting for hosts. The new settings are designed to prevent the pranksters and the ones who crash the zoom meetings and display adult content or other kind of indecent material.

Zoom grabbed the maximum users in recent times as most of the students and employees are forced to working from home and offer a number of employee and student friendly features.

Photo Credits:   News break