Christopher Harris reports:
Australia’s top cyber safety boss has warned that strangers can directly contact students via a privacy glitch in education software, which is available to every public school student in NSW.
The loophole allows predators to verify a student’s email using Google Hangouts and then contact them directly or by sharing a Google document with them.
Read more on The Daily Telegraph. This is horrifying… and it can happen everywhere. Michael Uren, who has contacted this blogger in the past over privacy concerns in the schools there, spoke with The Daily Telegraph about this current risk:
Australian Students Privacy Coalition’s spokesman Michael Uren said most schools used Google’s Suite for Education service — for housing emails and documents — which allows their email to be easily verified with Google Hangouts.
Strangers can then email or communicate with children via shareable Google Docs, even if the child’s email address is disabled from Google Hangouts.
“It is insane the scenarios it opens up for people to do dodgy stuff,” Mr Uren said.