Security News > 2020 > April > Experts question abrupt decision by New York City to ban Zoom from use in all public schools
In an unprecedented and hotly debated move, the New York City Department of Education banned the use of Zoom, writing in an internal memo on April 3 that teachers were no longer allowed to use the platform at all.
"We know the transition away from Zoom will take time for many educators and we will support them. We know maintaining continuity of teaching means it won't happen overnight. Less than 2 weeks ago, our heroic educators began transforming instruction for 1.1M kids, bringing the nation's largest public school system online. They rose to this challenge with grace, and our whole city is grateful for how they've learned to teach and lead remotely," Carranza wrote.
Many educators and professors said the decision by the city to unilaterally ban Zoom was hasty and showed a lack of understanding of the deep-rooted issues many teachers are having with the platform.
Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate with Comparitech, said this had more to do with a lack of training provided by New York City's education department than anything specific to Zoom.
"Ultimately, the concerns raised with Zoom in the last few weeks are a great illustration of the balance of usability and security. From the start, Zoom was built to be a video conferencing platform that 'just works.' In order to get that 'it just works' user experience, they did some things that are questionable or just wrong from a security perspective," Rothe said.