Universities: Stop Forcing Students to Use Zoom

We are calling upon Canadian universities to stop using Zoom for online learning and adopt alternative platforms instead. 

Due to COVID-19, many universities have moved to learn online. Unfortunately, many students are offered only the option of using Zoom, despite the platform’s security risks and danger to students. Here are four major reasons why we are urging universities to use alternative platforms instead:

1] ZOOM’S SECURITY WEAKNESSES

In April, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab found “several security issues regarding Zoom,” including:

Zoom has distributed encryption keys for North American calls through servers in Beijing, where they are legally obligated to turn them over to the Chinese government upon request.
Zoom is a “high priority target” for intelligence agencies and cybercriminals, both due to its popularity as well as its weak security protocols.
Human rights activists are at particular risk on Zoom since they are prime targets for authoritarian governments such as China.

Citizen Lab’s security concerns around China were later proven to be well-founded:

2] SURVEILLANCE AND CENSORSHIP FOR THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT

In June, when US-based activists tried to organize a virtual commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Zoom banned their accounts — at the request of the Chinese government. This was widely reported by CBC, BBC, The Guardian, CNN, and more.

Discussion of the massacre remains illegal in China, which used the military to crush student protests in Beijing in 1989 violently. Zoom, however, censored the activists, even though they were based in the US. This raises the question: what else will Zoom ban at the mere request of the Chinese government?

3] HONG KONG NATIONAL SECURITY LAW

If Zoom is surveilling and censoring users at the request of the Chinese government, then that poses enormous risks for students based in China or Hong Kong. 

Zoom discussions that mention topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese Communist Party (such as human rights or democracy) would easily be grounds for imprisonment — especially given the new National Security Law in Hong Kong, which criminalizes vague offences such as “treason” and “subversion” (both already illegal in China). Zoom’s surveillance puts China and Hong Kong based students in extraordinary danger and dissuades them from speaking freely during online discussions.

4] ZOOM-BOMBING, RACISM, AND HATE

Finally, Zoom’s inadequate security has also led to Zoom-bombing:

Toronto MPP Chris Glover had a Zoom meeting disrupted with child pornography,
Jewish organizations in Canada have suffered from anti-Semitic intruders on their calls,
And there have been many other reported incidents of Zoom meetings being infiltrated with provocateurs spreading hateful, racist, and pornographic content.

The risk of Zoom-bombing is particularly harmful to BIPOC students, who are often on the receiving end of hate and abuse — and universities should not be forcing students to use a platform that has previously repeatedly failed to ensure the safety of its users. 

 

Students should feel safe about going to class. Students should not need to worry about how Zoom actively facilitates surveillance and censorship by the Chinese government, or its long history of exposing users to traumatizing Zoom-bombings. Zoom’s security standards — or lack thereof — are completely unacceptable. Once again, we demand that universities stop using Zoom, and instead use more secure alternatives, such as Google Hangout, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and Cisco.

Please sign this petition and urge universities to protect students!