Risk Alerts
8 EMERGING RISKS TO WATCH Pandemic and Privacy Exposures By Kimberly Tallon Even the most vigilant insurers and reinsurers scanning the risk landscape for potential future liability problems are likely to fall into landmines. What insurance risks of the immediate or distant future are being overlooked now? Carrier Management offers a continuing look at some partially hidden risks with a regular feature—CM Risk Alerts, compiled by Assistant Editor Kimberly Tallon from a subjective list assembled by the entire CM team. Our aim is to offer short takes—flagging and summarizing items that may not yet have surfaced in property/casualty C-suites or boardrooms, on insurance conference agendas or in the mainstream press but may well have insurance implications. This installment focuses on coronavirus pandemic-related risks, as well as privacy issues and global warming.
1. ‘Zoombombing’ hits meetings with hate speech and pornography.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, video-conferencing app Zoom has become the go-to for people looking to work, learn and socialize remotely. Unfortunately, it has also become a target for harassment and abuse coordinated in private off-platform chats. Millions of individuals have adopted Zoom as a meeting platform, attending school lessons, board meetings, exercise classes, support groups and conferences virtually while they practice social distancing. Firsttime installs of Zoom’s mobile app rose by 1,126 percent in March to more than 76 million, up from just 6.2 million in February, according to data from SensorTower (cited by NY Times).
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The app’s soaring popularity has been both a blessing and a curse, as reports of uninvited participants “Zoombombing” meetings with pornography, hate images and threatening language have become more frequent. Those incidents, initially viewed as
pranks or trolling, have now risen to the level of hate speech and harassment. On March 30, the FBI even issued a warning and provided a list of safety measures for Zoom users. An analysis by The New York Times found 153 Instagram accounts, dozens of Twitter accounts and private chats, and several active message boards on Reddit and 4Chan where thousands of people had gathered to organize Zoom harassment campaigns, sharing meeting passwords and plans to attack public and private meetings. Consumer advocates have also expressed concern about users’ private data, citing some worrying parts of Zoom’s privacy policy (which has since been updated for clarity), as well as a feature that offered hosts the ability to turn on
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