Due to an infortunate incident, an Oslo school has abandoned “digital classrooms” it has been using for homeschooling amid a nationwide coronavirus quarantine, national broadcaster NRK reported.
A lesson with nine-year-old kids was interrupted by a stranger who barged into the conference call while lying in a bed in his underwear. He later undressed himself and started masturbating in front of the webcam. The shocked girls then notified their parents about what had happened.
“My daughter is nine years old, and it came as a shock to her. This is something that one hopes the children avoid experiencing”, the father of one of the girls said.
“He tried to talk to the girls and asked them to touch his camera. They think it was terrifying and disgusting. They were a little afraid of who this person was. After all, I was worried about whether this app is safe to use”, the parent said.
So far, the working theory is that the man had somehow obtained a link and entered the conference.
The headmaster of the school confirmed the incident, and pledged to take a serious look into it and provide a police report. So far, the school is none the wiser as to how it could have happened.
However, upon consulting with the Department of Information Security in the Education Administration, the school agreed to close the digital classrooms based on the Whereby app, which many schools are using amid the quarantine.
“We chose to close the teaching app, and moved the teaching to a different communications platform with journal notes on the advice of the education administration”, the headmaster explained.
Whereby product and technology manager Ingrid Ødegaard apologised for the inconvenience. She admitted that this is not the first time such incidents have occurrred but explained that the trade-off between security and usability makes it almost impossible to prevent them altogether.
“It is very regrettable and something that should not happen at all. We take it very seriously and work actively on all cases we hear about and block users. Of course, we don't want the service to be used lie this. We encourage everyone who experiences unwanted things to contact us so that we can act quickly”, Ødegaard said.
Norway has closed all schools and nursery schools until 13 April due to the coronavirus epidemic.
So far, 4,102 Norwegians have tested positive for COVID-19. A total of 22 people with an average age of 84 have succumbed to the disease in the country.
