UPDATE: Passcodes and Waiting Rooms NOT Mandatory Starting 9/27
In a reversal of the company’s previously announced policies, Zoom has decided NOT to enforce Waiting Rooms or Passcodes on all meetings starting September 27. Zoom says this reversal is “based on the feedback that we received about both the nature and timing of these changes.”
While it’s unfortunate this decision comes so close to the announced change date — after many users have already been inconvenienced in the scramble to make their meetings compliant — it will no doubt come as a relief to many users still struggling with how to navigate the change in the middle of an already challenging semester.
To be clear, if you’ve gone ahead and secured your meetings with passcodes or Waiting Rooms, then all the better; your classes can continue to occur with an enhanced level of security from Zoombombers and other threats. We still encourage this as a best practice. However, if you are among those users who have not yet established a Waiting Room or passcode, then your meetings, too, should function on and after 9/27 just as they do now.
In November, Zoom will introduce “a new Admin feature which, when enabled, ensures that ALL meetings have at least ONE of the following applied: a) Passcode, b) Waiting Room, c) ‘Only authenticated users can join’.” After consulting with VCU’s Information Security Office, we have elected to enable this feature by default, but only after Fall classes are completed. You will be able to decide which options work best for your meetings.
Thanks for your attention and as always feel free to contact us at [email protected] with your questions or concerns.
Categories announcements, policy, security