Awareness of security and privacy settings in video conferencing apps among faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has forced many schools and universities worldwide, including Saudi Arabia, to move from traditional face-to-face learning to online learning. Most online learning activities involve the use of video conferencing apps to facilitate synchronous learning sessions. While some faculty members were not accustomed to using video conferencing apps, they had no other choice than to jump on board regardless of their readiness, one of which involved security and privacy awareness. On the other hand, video conferencing apps users face a number of security and privacy threats and vulnerabilities, many of which rely on human factors to be exploited. In this study, we used survey data from 307 faculty members at 43 Saudi Arabian universities to determine the level of awareness among Saudi Arabian faculty regarding security and privacy settings of video conferencing apps and to investigate the factors associated with it. We analyzed the data using the Knowledge-Attitudes-Behaviors (KAB) model and the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) method. We found that the average awareness score of video conferencing apps’ security and privacy settings falls into the “Poor” category, which is not surprising considering that many faculty members only started using this new technology on a daily basis because of the pandemic. Further analysis showed that perceived security, familiarity with the app, and digital literacy of faculty members are significantly associated with higher awareness. Privacy concerns are significantly associated with higher awareness only among STEM faculty members, while attitudes toward ICT for teaching and research are negatively associated with such awareness among senior faculty members with more than 10 years of experience. This study lays the foundation for future research and user education on the security and privacy settings of video conferencing applications.