Zoom helps us keep in touch
The Executive Board has decided to continue to permit the use of Zoom at ETH, initially (for legal reasons) until the end of June 2021. However, the plan is to keep the conferencing tool available after the coronavirus crisis ends.
Zoom has managed to find a home at ETH in no time at all – both for teaching and as part of our daily work routines. There are currently around 9,500 Pro licenses – providing access to all of the conferencing tool’s features – in use at our university, along with a good 17,500 free licenses offering limited features, the main one being that people can participate in Zoom meetings with ease.
In July 2020, the Executive Board extended permission to use Zoom through to the end of the year. The Board has now taken the decision to allow the conferencing tool to be used until the end of June 2021. The deadline is due to data protection: the data protection office for the canton of Zurich has permitted the use of Zoom during the coronavirus crisis only. This is primarily because the licence agreement is subject to US law, with the USA being the place of jurisdiction. This means nobody would be able to take action against Zoom in the event of contravention of data protection laws.
In the meantime, however, the SWITCH foundation has negotiated a framework agreement with Zoom for the Swiss education sector which is intended to meet the requirements of Zurich’s data protection authority. The agreement should be signed before the year is out, which would pave the way for unrestricted use of the tool.
The IT services department is seeking to procure licences under this new agreement in the first half of 2021, which would free Zoom from its current expiration date and allow it to be used in accordance with data protection rules. Zoom is here to stay.