By: Claudia Viera
Key Security Features for Zoom Mediations
Confidential and secure conversations are a hallmark of the mediation process. Mediators who use Zoom video conference for their mediations must ensure these conversations are protected and private to the greatest extent possible.
While the risk is likely low that an unwanted attendee would appear in a private mediation, or that the mediator would fail to notice, this article summarizes key security features that mediators should use to ensure their mediations are confidential and secure. Zoom (zoom.com) continues to update its security features, so new options may soon be added.
I. Use a Mediation Waiting Room
One of the best ways to use Zoom for private mediations is to enable the Waiting Room feature. The Waiting Room is a virtual home page that stops your parties from joining the mediation until you admit them. You should admit only those you have invited to the mediation at the appointed time.
The mediator (host) can customize Waiting Room settings for additional control, and can even personalize the message attendees see when they arrive in the Waiting Room.
II. Manage Mediation Participants
Other features to help secure your Zoom mediation include:
• Allow only invited attendees to join: If someone tries to join your mediation and is not logged into Zoom with the email through which they were invited, they will receive a message that does not allow them in unless authenticated. The above is useful if you want to control your mediation guest list by invite only.
• Set up two-factor authentication: Create a password for your mediation. Generate a random Meeting ID when scheduling your mediation and require a password to join. For greater security, share the Meeting ID separately from the password by email or text message to the parties.
• Lock the mediation: When you lock a Zoom mediation after it has started, no new participants can join, even if they have the meeting ID and password (if you required one.) To lock the mediation after it has begun, click Participants at the bottom of your Zoom window. In the Participants pop-up, click the button that says Lock Meeting.
• Mute participants: Mediators can mute/unmute individual participants or all of them at once. Mediators can block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate noise from other participants. You can also enable ‘Mute Upon Entry’ in your settings to keep background noise down in large mediations.
Each party can temporarily unmute themselves by pressing and holding the space bar.
• Turn off file transfer: File transfer allows people to share files through the in-meeting chat. Turn this off to keep the chat from receiving unwanted content.
• Turn off annotation: You and your attendees can highlight and mark up content together using annotations during screen share. You can disable the annotation feature.
• Disable private chat: Zoom has in-meeting chat for everyone, and it allows parties to message each other privately. You may restrict parties’ ability to chat with each another during the mediation (which has some downsides also.) Disabling chat prevents anyone from getting messages during the mediation. One downside of disabling chat is that parties/attorneys cannot use the Help feature to contact you when they are in the breakout room and you are not. They may instead use private cell phone calls or text messages to reach you.
III. Control Screen Sharing
The mediator should not give up control of her screen, especially when hosting a large mediation. You can control this either before or during the meeting in the host control bar settings.
To prevent parties from screen sharing during a video-conference, use the host controls at the bottom, click the arrow next to Share Screen and then Advanced Sharing Options. Under “Who can share?” choose “Only Host” and close the window. You can also lock the Screen Share by default for all your meetings in your web settings.
At times when you would like an attorney to share the screen, you can enable this feature again during the mediation.
IV. Other Features to Control the Mediation
The following features should not be necessary if you have taken the precautions described above. However, in the case that an uninvited attendee appears:
• Remove unwanted or disruptive participants: From the Participants menu, you can hover over a party’s name, and several options will appear, including Remove.
• Allow removed participants to re-join: When you remove someone, they can’t rejoin the meeting, unless you alter your settings to allow removed participants to rejoin. This is useful in the case where you accidently remove the wrong person.
• Put party on hold: You can put each participant on a temporary hold, including the party’s video and audio connections. Click on the party’s video thumbnail and select Start Attendee On Hold to activate this feature. Click Take Off Hold in the Participants list if/when you are ready to invite them back.
• Disable video: Mediators can turn a party’s video off. This will allow mediators to block unwanted, distracting or inappropriate attendees.
V. Mediator Best Practices
1. Do not use your personal meeting ID to set up mediations. Use an automatically-generated ID.
2. Do not record mediations or allow others to record. Specifically state at the beginning of your mediation that you do not consent to being recorded. Include a similar statement in your Agreement to Mediate and/or Confidentiality Agreement.
3. Consider potential risks before sharing documents via screen share. It may be wise, at this time, to indicate no sharing of attorney-client privilege materials via Zoom screen share.
4. Use chat only for logistics. Do not discuss attorney-client privilege materials in the chat feature.
5. Recommend that attorneys practice using Zoom with their clients prior to the day of mediation to work through technical challenges. Cellphones function, but are not ideal, and should be used as a last resort if a computer is unavailable.
VI. Other Thoughts
New flaws and fixes for those flaws are being discovered regularly. It may be that you prefer to utilize other software platforms, such as Webex, among others. Zoom continues to update its security features weekly. In addition, Zoom’s ease of use for calendaring mediations, and for hosting breakout rooms (caucuses) during mediations continues to be quite useful.
No matter what your choice of virtual platforms for your mediations, ensure you follow all security protocols and encourage your parties to be patient and flexible as we all navigate these unusual times.
I look forward to serving you at your next mediation – whether online or eventually in person. For now, stay safe, and let’s all do our part to protect each other by meeting virtually.
*Ideas above are based on tips from Zoom (March 20, 2020) in How to Keep the Party Crashers from Crashing Your Zoom Event in addition to more recent updates.
About the Author: Claudia Viera, Esq., is a San Francisco Bay Area mediator focusing primarily on employment, business and contract disputes. For more information, please contact info@vieramediation.com or www.vieramediation.com