Otis College has become aware of an increase in unauthorized AI bots joining Zoom meetings to record conversations and shared content without permission. These bots often impersonate legitimate participants, automatically attend meetings, record audio and video, and may repost the content on commercial websites without the knowledge or consent of meeting participants.

To help protect the privacy of faculty, staff, students, and guests, all Zoom meeting hosts should follow the security practices outlined below.

If you suspect that an unauthorized AI bot or unknown participant has joined your meeting, please report it to the IT Help Desk immediately at [email protected].

Below are some steps you can take to protect your meetings:

1. Do not publicly post join links

2. Use Zoom's Waiting Room feature to review participants before admitting them into the meeting.

3. Avoid third-party browser extensions such as Otter.ai and Notta.ai

4. Do not allow AI notetakers to join meetings on behalf of individuals unless an individual explicitly requests this presence. For faculty, please be aware of any note-taking accommodations that may be in place

5. Remove anyone you don’t recognize from a meeting

6. Do a quick on-camera check-in at the start of a meeting and remove anyone without a camera

7. Don’t send out mass emails with links to video recordings (posting the video links in the Nest is more secure)

You can find more information about AI bots scraping Zoom meetings online.