We are happy to announce that we have installed a new BigBlueButton service available to the public for entities in need of a web conferencing system that respect their privacy and no additional software requirements. BigBlueButton is a free and open source web conferencing system designed for use in tele-education. All you need to do is to reach out to us via contact [at] privacylx.org and then create an account under our BigBlueButton service.
Today we sent the following letter to the Portuguese Ministry of Education:
Dear Ministry of Education,
Regarding the topic of tele-education, the PrivacyLx association (NIPC 515584550) is ready to voluntarily provide their know-how and consulting for the installation and setup of a pilot tele-education platform based on the education platform Moodle and the audio-video teleconference system of BigBlueButton. These systems have already been deployed and used by many universities, schools and other institutions from all over the world with very positive experiences.
We are an organization that defends the right to privacy and we believe we can contribute to the protection of students’ privacy.
We are very well aware that commercially centralized services are not appropriate, pose critical privacy and security issues and in many cases cannot handle the network throughput that during the pandemic has been increased immensely.
Despite the legal guidance of the CNPD we find that there is still no general guidance of a technical guideline and each school adopts its solution, following rules that are often questionable, which have consequences for the safety and privacy of students, parents and teachers.
A success case of one of these platforms, has been referenced by the European Union Free Software Observatory.
Unfortunately, the current pandemic situation will extend over a long period of time, and in the long term it will be necessary to implement a safe and reliable system aimed at the education of the Portuguese education.
We are at your disposal for any questions or in further clarifications regarding the details of the proposed systems.