Introduction
In recent years, with the development of big data on the Internet, personal information of Internet users, consumer preferences, and other content are collected and analyzed by various enterprises and platforms to make predictions for purchasing behavior and browsing preferences so as to generate more targeted business promotions.
However, while data brings benefits in the information age, it can also lead to many problems such as data abuse, personal privacy leakage, and business secrets infringement. While we can get some convenience, the security of user data has also become a hot issue that cannot be ignored.
Personal network information is collected and analyzed by platform parties. The cases that have attracted public attention in recent years because of personal information leakage include Facebook information leakage in 2018, airlines leaking customer information, Uber Eats leaking customer cell phone numbers and addresses, etc. The long-standing information mismatch between platforms and users has caused users to worry about privacy leaks, and the crisis of trust has been created by the accumulation of users’ uneasiness about the security risks in the endless similar incidents.
This blog starts with the Zoom case, focusing on the responsible parties and stakeholders involved in the data leakage link, reviewing the way it was handled, and analyzing where the current problems lie and the direction in which the parties involved should change. We will explore the needs of the people exposed and the motives of the people to whom the information was leaked, and find the key checks and balances to solve the problem. Secondly, we will discuss the prevention and handling mechanism of data leakage in terms of the responsibility of society, government, platforms, and individuals.
In early 2020, with the arrival of COVID-19, people started choosing to work and study from home in order to keep social distance. The number of people using Zoom, one of the most famous video conferencing apps, has increased dramatically. The advantages of Zoom are simple, smooth, stable, and free. It has grown from 10 million to 200 million users from December 2019 to March 2020. As software that allows remote work, instant messaging, and document writing, it has become an immediate need for many schools and businesses. With the surge in users comes the issue of privacy and security for users.
CASE
According to the Washington Post (2020), Zoom leaked more than 15,000 videos with a variety of content, including online lectures, business meetings, doctor-patient meetings, and some private and intimate content.
At the time, after the recording was completed, the meeting sponsor had the option to store the video locally or upload it to the Zoom server. However, some people also choose to then upload the video to a third-party cloud platform like AWS without a password. Instead, these videos without passwords are saved by Zoom in a single named online storage space that can be downloaded and viewed by anyone.
The meeting host records the video without the attendee’s consent, and only sends the attendee a reminder that the recording has begun. This also led to many parties being surprised to see their faces, voices, and personal information after the Zoom meeting video was made public because they didn’t even realize it was being recorded at the time.
Black and Green Screen Display. (Kozik, 2021)
USER REACTION
Users who work with Zoom have made a move against video leaks. According to the Washington Post, Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for the New York City Dept. of Education told teachers that they should stop using Zoom and turn to its competitor Microsoft Teams for instruction. Zoom’s chief marketing officer Janine Pelosi was trying to talk to the New York government about how Zoom can be of service during this time ( Whittakker, 2020).
On the first trading day after the accident, April 6, Zoom’s stock(NASDAQ: ZM) price fell 4.1%( Shan, 2020).
Zoom explained the deeper reason for this massive video breach: Zoom was built for enterprise customers, such as government agencies, universities, and healthcare organizations, who often have well-established IT support and security vetting. Most of the new users coming in large numbers are using their school email and real names for their activities, which definitely means more security is needed.
The technical section did not predict the impact of a large number of new users, and the changes Zoom made were a way to solidify its user base if it wanted to maintain this industry-leading quarterly revenue.
In response, Zoom quickly went public with a remedy: it stopped developing new features for the next 90 days to focus on improving privacy and security. It also introduced a privacy policy specific to K12 education， adjusted the program’s default options, and permanently removed some tracking features. zoom emphasized that it has never sold user data and will not do so in the future.
People on a Video Call. (Shvet, 2020)
In order to effectively address users’ concerns about the security of their personal data, changes are needed from all parties involved in information dissemination.
SOLUTION
First of all, society should take the responsibility to educate the public about the importance of privacy in order to protect personal information.
Internet users handle information by browsing, collecting, and uploading it themselves. Not everyone has a basic understanding of the concept of privacy protection. For example, filling in your own information in a web questionnaire without knowing the source. Most Internet users are still in the stage of the gradual awakening of security awareness. Why people are worried about the leakage of personal information, where the leaked information will go, and how it will affect their lives, these cases should alert the public to the importance of personal information protection, and educate those around them who do not have timely access to information. The more users who are aware of the law and know how to take legal action to protect their rights, the more likely it is that public opinion will be unanimous, and the more likely it is that various interest groups will take the issue seriously and push for a solution. This may require advocacy from the community, schools, and government, with influential community members and netizens to cooperate.
Holding Blue Ballpoint Pen on White Notebook (Lukas, 2017)
The Consumer Privacy Expectations Report shows that Americans worried about their personal data breach have grown from 61 percent in 2018 to 80 percent in 2020.
Privacy is increasingly important for the public, and algorithmic systems are almost ubiquitous in the operational processes of society. Absorbing data about people and their practices to inform decision-making systems in sectors as diverse as criminal justice, advertising, transportation, and news delivery. In these data-driven systems, opting out is not as easy as it could be (Marwick, 2018). Especially for some students during COVID-19, Zoom was the only way for schools to designate online classes.
Personally, I often receive advertising messages from Taobao stores or receive promotions from unknown phone numbers, and although the phone can be set to default to spam, the fact is that users do not have the opportunity to automatically choose whether or not they can receive them, and because they find it troublesome and do not want to spend time looking for the source of the leak. Users can actively report to the platform, defend their rights, reflect on the relevant parts, and give feedback together with other victims.
Message screenshot
Otherwise, we always have the right to choose whether to use the platform or not. Ask yourself a few questions: do we really have to adapt to this unreasonable platform? Any platform can only continue to grow if it has enough users, and as long as enough voices are raised, there is the possibility of change.
PLATFORM RESPONSIBILITY
Finally, the platform party in possession of the information should be mandatory to sign a reasonable privacy agreement with the user, about how personal information will be viewed and used needs to explain and make a responsible commitment. Every time privacy leaks are exposed, a new round of product security issues are triggered. But the wind seems to pass and nothing happens, the company hastily made a patch, and users continue to use it, seems to become a cycle of the industry. Few organizations are paying for the consequences of user privacy breaches, often just fixing.
As Suzor(2019) mentioned in Who Makes the Rules, clearly people now often feel uneasy when social media platforms make decisions that seem biased or somehow wrong. The platforms we use today have a large number of users, and it is not uncommon for them to make changes to their privacy policies when they are updated again. If you don’t agree to the terms of the license to use the content you post, you lose the right to continue using the platform, no matter how much content you have published or how many followers you have. And many ordinary users don’t care about this and don’t want to change their habits so they let influential accounts that need followers also continue to stay, making the platform monopoly even more authoritarian. Based on each platform having its own ecological environment, the same account in other platforms may lose influence and followers, and the cost of operating an account from scratch is very high. For a long time, the survival of other platforms is at stake, and some users are complaining but there are not many options left.
And each platform’s own reporting mechanism varies, there are often robots that simply do not deal with, or customer service can not be found, the relationship between the user and the platform is in a state of imbalance. In order to deal with such situations, it is necessary for platform operators to develop standardized handling guidelines and enhance technical protection, such as setting up a dedicated security team.
“We recognize that we have fallen short of the community’s — and our own — privacy and security expectations,” Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom said in a blog post on Wednesday. “For that, I am deeply sorry. ” CNN （2020）reported.
Eric Yuan, CEO and founder of Zoom( Carlo Allegri/AP ,2020)
It’s worth noting that Zoom reported Q4 earnings in early March, with its quarterly revenue of $188.3 million, up 78% year-over-year. (Novet, 2020).
Huge revenues are also one of the reasons why Zoom is willing to improve for its users. Yuan’s attitude shows that Zoom’s progress after this fiasco and trustworthy stance can win more and steady new users, and regulating the platform’s privacy guide rules is a win-win for everyone.
In addition, a special oversight body is needed to determine the reasonableness of the agreement. Independent third-party oversight is critical. Digital platforms have good reason to question government regulation of online content, just as users do not trust the platforms. Too many governments and politicians have responded to social and political unrest by steering public opinion against social media and online content. That’s why people need a credible regulator (Terry, 2019). Currently, countries have different laws and agencies to regulate these elements, with the goal of improving the transparency of Internet platform operations, improving platform governance, and strengthening external oversight. The multi-pronged approach serves as a deterrent to lawbreakers who attempt to use others’ personal information to gain undue benefits while safeguarding the security of users’ information. In China, there is the Personal Protection Law, and the National Anti-Fraud Center APP is also promoted as a highly valued reporting channel in the private sector, allowing users with fruitless complaints on various platforms to quickly dock to the Internet police. The deterrent effect of the policy also promotes self-monitoring on the platform side.
The protection of information security is the result of a concerted effort by various stakeholders to achieve it. The government should implement regulatory measures, improve laws and regulations with current information, and seriously deal with cases related to personal information security. The platform should correct its attitude, formulate reasonable information usage protocols for the sake of customers, and promptly deal with users’ complaints and learn from their suggestions, with the goal of improving user experience and enhancing information usage efficiency. A good platform role model can lead the whole industry and attract more users. And users should raise their awareness of self-protection in their daily lives, try not to actively expose personal information, and actively use legal weapons and complaint systems to defend their rights and interests.
Crop colleagues shaking hands in office (Shimazaki, 2020)
CONCLUSION
All in all, data, as an important resource for network development, is of inestimable value in the current information age. People need to learn the lessons and actively look for checks and balances for the rational collection and use of information and security assurance. The development of information will be a serious and protracted battle for all stakeholders of the Internet worldwide, and it is important to know what we are dealing with first, and everyone in the situation has a long way to go.
REFERENCE
Harwell, D. (2020). Thousands of Zoom video calls left exposed on open Web. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/03/thousands-zoom-video-calls-left-exposed-open-web/
Whittaker, Z. (2020). TechCrunch is part of the Yahoo family of brands. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/05/zoom-new-york-city-schools/
Shah, A. (2020). Investing in Zoom Stock amid COVID-19, Boom or Bust?. Retrieved from https://marketrealist.com/2020/04/investing-zoom-stock-covid-19-boom-bust/
Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2018). Understanding Privacy at the Margins: Introduction. International journal of communication [Online], 1157+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A561120196/AONE?u=usyd&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=3df64beb
Suzor, N. (2019). Who Makes the Tules? In Lawless: The Secret Rules That Govern Our Digital Lives (pp. 10-24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lyengar, R. (2020). Zoom CEO apologizes for having ‘fallen short’ on privacy and security. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/02/tech/zoom-ceo-apology-privacy/index.html
Novet, J. (2020). Zoom falls sharply despite earnings beat. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/zoom-zm-earnings-q4-2020.html
Terry Flew. (2019). Platforms on Trial. Intermedia, 46(2), 18–23. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/120461/
