Virtual meetings have real privacy pitfalls, experts warn
Video conferencing is a daily feature for countless organisations in the COVID-19 pandemic' but CQUniversity academics warn that businesses should consider privacy laws before they Zoom.
CQUniversity's Dr Ritesh Chugh from the School of Engineering and Technology and Associate Professor Scott Beattie from the School of Business and Law have explained how to avoid privacy pitfalls when using platforms like Zoom' Teams or Google Meet' in an article for Campus Review (Australia's leading independent tertiary education publication).
"Many Zoom meetings are recorded' and often people take screenshots showing all the participants' which are subsequently communicated or published publicly'" Dr Chugh explained.
"While most platforms warn participants when the software itself is recording' there are other methods by which this can be done secretly.
"Apart from the security ramifications of video conferencing' there are other privacy-related issues and legal questions that are worth pondering."
A/Prof Beattie explained that just screenshotting public content produced by third parties' such as their photos' recordings and social media posts' is not generally considered to be illegal.
But a closed meeting is not public' and consideration of copyright ownership comes into play.
"Your everyday Zoom meeting sits at a complex junction of different laws and may occur in multiple jurisdictions that differ in approach. There are privacy laws to consider' obligations to protect private information and the more general right of privacy'" he explained.
Advising all participants that the meeting would be recorded and receiving their consent was important' he said.
Then publishing the recordings or screenshots' for instance on social media' could create further legal questions.
"In a video meeting' the owner of a copyright is the person who created the content' so technically the recording itself is the property of the meeting host - in law this is called a 'derivative work''" he explained.
"Copyright applies to the 'written' expression of an idea' not ideas themselves so no one owns the ideas discussed in a meeting itself' although distributing these may amount to a breach of confidentiality."
Existing workplace and contractual obligations like non-disclosure agreements may also mean the meeting is confidential' creating legal issues for anyone who tried to record and share its contents.
"You can potentially also be sued for breach of confidentiality' on top of any other breach of privacy'" A/Prof Beattie said.
Dr Chugh highlighted that people need to be aware of screenshotting social media private posts as "the sharing of screenshots of private meetings and conversations can be a privacy breach."
