Google Meet Has New Protection Features For Online Educational Meetings

Google is adding a new protection feature to prevent educational meetings via Google Meet from being “zoombombed.”

In a G Suite changelog entry, Google announced that it will start blocking anonymous users from joining Google Meet online meetings organized by educational institutions and groups such as schools and universities. The move comes at a time when many have shifted to working and studying from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Google said it will block those who are not logged into a Google account from trying to join meetings organized by those with a G Suite for Education or G Suite Enterprise for Education license. This will effectively prevent random people from joining online classes and the like in order to troll or “zoombomb.”

As per ZDNet, many online classes that have been held since the start of the current pandemic have been interrupted by pranksters.

Students who want to leave the class early simply share the link to the meeting via various platforms so that pranksters can join and disrupt it, forcing organizers to end classes quickly. The habit of crashing into classes to disrupt it has been called “zoombombing” – derived from the platform where the unruly behavior started: Zoom.

Some “zoombombers,” as the pranksters are called, do all sorts of things to interrupt meetings, ranging from making a lot of noise to hurling death threats. Some have even gone as far as showing pornography in the said meetings.

“Anonymous users can cause disruption to learning by making noise and sharing content, and become a distraction for the meeting organizer when they try to join meetings,” Google said in the changelog entry.

The new security feature will prevent Google Meet users from sharing links publicly so that random people can join in meetings organized by educational institutions. The feature will be turned “on” by default for both admins (organizers) and end users (participants). Admins will be able to turn the feature off by asking G Suite support for an exception.

Google said the feature will gradually roll out to G Suite for Education or G Suite Enterprise for Education users within 15 days starting July 13.