Sent to Faculty and Staff on all U-M campuses and Michigan Medicine by email on April 6, 2020.
Dear U-M faculty and staff,
Many of you have asked how to appropriately secure your videoconferencing meetings and what the university is doing to address potential privacy and security issues in Zoom and other videoconferencing tools.
I want to assure you that U-M takes the privacy and security of its data and systems seriously, including when engaging vendors that provide services on our behalf. We have been paying close attention to these issues and working directly with our vendors. I want to share information about what you can do as well as what the university is doing to help maintain a safe and secure environment for remote teaching, learning, research, and patient care.
What you can do
ITS provides a variety of guidance and tips on how to secure videoconferencing services. This includes:
- Limit who has access to your meetings. Within Zoom, you can allow only "authenticated users" to join your meetings, which limits your participants to other members of the U-M community. We strongly recommend using this option for classes and internal meetings.
- Limit what participants can do. Zoom and BlueJeans allow you to manage who can share their screen, chat, and transfer files within meetings.
- See instructions and additional tips online, at Secure Your Videoconferencing and Videoconferencing Security & Privacy Frequently Asked Questions.
What the university is doing
U-M continues to ensure that privacy, security, and compliance matters are part of how we do business with videoconferencing vendors. To find out more go to Privacy, Security, Compliance, and Videoconferencing on the ITS Safe Computing website.
I am appreciative for how you have leveraged all of these tools overnight to keep the university's important teaching, learning, research, and patient care going strong during these times. ITS staff are happy to consult or provide additional support you may need. Please continue to reach out to me if I can answer any questions.
Best regards,
Ravi
Ravi Pendse, PhD
Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
University of Michigan
[email protected]