Protecting Privacy and Security in Online Instruction: A Guide for Students and Faculty

Abstract

COVID-19 forced educational institutions all over the globe to shift abruptly to online instruction. Online instruction presents many challenges to both faculty and students accustomed to in-person learning. Among those challenges are serious equity concerns, including wide variation among students and faculty in terms of technological literacy, access to reliable Internet service and related “digital divide” issues, time zones, caretaking responsibilities, and personal situations that may make remote learning difficult or impossible (e.g. unsafe home conditions). Another serious category of concern are privacy and security issues, which are the subject of this memo. The privacy and security issues raised by this memo are not exhaustive. This memo is only a preliminary and necessarily incomplete set of concerns and recommendations.

Keywords: privacy, online instruction, COVID-19, pandemic, security, zoombombing, coronavirus