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Jakarta Post

How to stay safe during video conferences

Harris Iskandar, who heads the COVID-19 task force’s division for education and behavioral change, said we were currently in an era of great disruption as a result of the 5 Ds: digitalization, demographic bonus, decentralization, de-bureaucratization and the pandemic disease.

News Desk (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, October 29, 2020

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How to stay safe during video conferences A teacher speaks to her students through a video conference platform on the first day of school at SMA 8 state senior high school in Jakarta on July 13. JP/Seto Wardhana (JP/Seto Wardhana)

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a global digital transformation. 

Harris Iskandar, who heads the COVID-19 task force’s division for education and behavioral change, said we were currently in an era of great disruption as a result of the 5 Ds: digitalization, demographic bonus, decentralization, de-bureaucratization and the pandemic disease.

As people are forced to stay at home, video-communication services, such as Zoom or Google Meet, have become go-to tools to interact with others.

Google Cloud government affairs and public policy lead for South-East Asia Yam Ki Chan, speaking in a webinar hosted by Tenggara Strategics on Tuesday, said day-over-day growth for Google Meet had surpassed 60 percent, and as a result the daily usage was more than 25 times what it had been in January. 

“Today, over 3 billion minutes of meetings happen each day, [that’s] around 5,700 years of meeting per day,” he said.

Amid the adaptation to the digital world, it’s important to stay safe while using the technology.

Yam explained that Google Meet had undertaken various measures to ensure users’ security.

While Google Meet appears very simple for everyone to use, the app actually takes various efforts to protect a user’s data.

“[Google] Meets takes advantage of Google Cloud secure design infrastructure to help protect customers’ data and safeguard their privacy,” he said. 

Read also: Accelerating digital transformation amid pandemic

The efforts included a two-step verification method and the Advanced Protection Program (APP). 

The former includes hardware and phone-based security keys.

Yam mentioned the two-step verification method as a secure and convenient way to safeguard customer data.

However, certain users could also enroll their account into APP. 

“APP provides the strongest protection available against phishing and account hijacking,” he said, saying that the feature was designed for high-risk accounts, such as those of journalists and policymakers.

“We have yet to see people successfully being phished if they’re participating in an APP program, even when they’re repeatedly targeted,” he said.

In addition to using the available features, internet users could do several things to stay safe online. 

When it comes to Google Meet, it’s suggested to add an extra layer of verification to ensure that only invited attendees gain access to the meeting. 

Meanwhile, when sharing a meeting invite publicly, it’s recommended to enable the “knocking” feature.

According to Google’s blog, this feature can help hosts personally vet and accept new attendees before they enter the meeting.

Moreover, it’s also recommended to verify meeting invitations and pay special attention to potential imposters when receiving an invite that requires installing a new-video conferencing app. (jes)

 

 

Editor’s note: This article is part of a public campaign by the COVID-19 task force to raise people’s awareness about the pandemic.

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