THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The links to join online meetings are often shared widely resulting in outsiders joining as mere spectators. To address the issue, the government has entrusted the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) as the nodal department to organize meetings, especially those discussing sensitive policy matters in the presence of the chief minister.
The IT mission has been asked to ensure that only those who are supposed to attend the meeting are attending. The privileges are only given to those attending the meeting on behalf of the stakeholder department.
“Government has noticed several issues with video conferences, wherein multiple platforms are used by the departments and the links are inadvertently shared with others. Instances of outsiders sharing the deliberations during the meetings and functions have also been brought to notice,” states a circular issued to district collectors and department heads by chief secretary Viswas Mehta.
The department that organises the video conferences involving the chief minister should provide the details, including the platform to be used, the participants, and the role and privileges of each member, to KSITM at least two days in advance.
The departments concerned will also have to share the hosting rights with KSITM, which will then verify the privileges of each participant. The organising departments have been asked to enquire about the hardware used by each participant, and update KSITM with the status.
In several meetings, lack of proper hardware was cited as one of the reasons for the poor quality of audio and video, thereby affecting the outcome of such meetings. The KSITM will ensure that the connectivity is seamless, and the required hardware is available with all participants. It has also been said that the feeds for the media should only be passed through the public relations department, from the live-feeds meant for the public through social media platforms such as Facebook.