Cranor featured in The New York Times on Zoom etiquette

EPP Professor Dr. Lorrie Cranor was recently featured in a New York Times article, Digital Hygiene in the Zoom Era. In the piece, Dr. Cranor, and other leading privacy experts, were asked about how we should be conducting ourselves while working from home. The line between our personal and professional spaces may be blurred, but in many ways, according to Cranor and others, the rules of conduct are the same.

Cranor had 3 major recommendations to make:

“First of all, turn off your camera when you don’t need it,” said Lorrie Cranor, the director of the CyLab Security and Privacy Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Or, “get a tiny webcam cover. You don’t have to worry about turning your video off. You will truly know that nobody can see you. That’s a lot of security for $8.” Dr. Cranor said a Post-it or a piece of opaque tape works, too.

When your camera is on, Dr. Cranor said, “make sure your computer is facing the wall.” She added: “Other than your cat dropping in, it should be hard for anyone to get into the frame.” Both Dr. Cranor and Ms. Brown suggested making use of virtual backgrounds.

Finally, Dr. Cranor said, “never share your whole screen, just share the particular application,” such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Word. If you’re hosting the meeting, you can disable other people’s ability to share their screens.

The article goes on to discuss other Zoom taboos such as how to deal with mishaps; the debate over whether to turn your video camera on or off; nuisance participants; when to mute yourself and more. To learn more about how to incorporate good digital hygiene practices, read the full article here.