Over the past few weeks, we’ve been covering the shift to teleworking and telemedicine by businesses and healthcare organizations. Shuttering non-essential business activities across the nation and the globe has driven individuals and organizations to online collaboration tools.
One of the beneficiaries of this increase in adoption and interest has been Microsoft Teams. Over the past few weeks, Microsoft has announced a record number of users, and measures to support this influx have been rolled out. Some of these measures include ensuring business continuity for Azure, as well as launching a consumer-focused Teams offering bundled with Microsoft 365.
Another beneficiary of this shift to working from home is Zoom. In addition to businesses and healthcare, school districts have adopted Zoom for distance learning. Most schools are closed for classes for the rest of the school year. Several Zoom security issues have cropped up, some of which we’ve covered in our article, Protecting Your Organization’s Security when Video Conferencing.
Schools, foreign governments ban the use of Zoom
School districts are catching on to these issues. This week, the New York School District, which is the largest in the country, banned Zoom for online learning. This is a growing trend, with several other districts in Washington, Nevada, and Utah following suit. These decisions come after a spate of bad press, and a warning from the FBI.
The governments of Taiwan and Canada have also banned the use of Zoom for governmental affairs, citing security concerns. The consistent winner on security in this field is Microsoft Teams. No major breaches in privacy have been reported with Teams.
Microsoft’s commitment to privacy with Teams
Microsoft Teams is built to comply with global, national, regional, and industry-specific regulations, Microsoft says it supports “over 90 regulatory standards and laws, including HIPAA, GDPR, FedRAMP, SOC, and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) for the security of students and children.” Encryption is also done using the industry-standard Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP).
These are the commitments Microsoft makes on what it will do with your data.
- Participant attention is not tracked
- Data is deleted after the termination or expiration of a subscription
- Teams data is never used to inform advertisements
- Use of data is restricted, and requirements for sharing data with governmental organizations are defined
- Transparency reports in the Microsoft Transparency Hub provide a picture on all requests for data received by Microsoft
- You can view your own data at any time
This is a strong commitment to privacy. You can be sure that Teams is built for security right out of the box.
What’s next for schools and Microsoft Teams?
Resources are available from Microsoft on how to connect Teams with learning management systems. If you need assistance, Dynamic Consultants Group has a team of experts ready to help your school or healthcare organization with a deployment of Teams. These services include end-to-end setup and training. Contact us today.
