Data privacy in screen sharing during a web conference

A Web conferencing data processing system configured for data privacy in screen sharing during Web conferencing, the system comprising:

• a host computing system comprising one or more computers, each with memory and at least one processor;
• a conferencing server executing in the memory of the host computing system and providing a Web conferencing session amongst different attendees over a computer communications network through a client interface in respectively different attendee computers;
• a screen sharing module coupled to the conferencing server, the module comprising computer program instructions enabled during execution to respond to a request during a Web conference by a presenter one of the attendees to share a specific third-party application concurrently executing in a corresponding one of the attendee computers with the client interface by:
• querying an access control interface of the specific third-party application for the different attendees in order to receive access control data for the third-party application in respect to the attendees;
• identifying a protected data field in a display screen of the specific third-party application and determining whether or not one of the attendee computers is associated with one of several access control rules based upon the received access control data that prohibits display of content in the protected data field;
• masking the data field in the display screen for the one of the attendee computers during sharing of the display screen while displaying remaining portions of the shared display screen in the one of the attendee computers.

A computer program product for data privacy in screen sharing during Web conferencing, the computer program product including a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a device to cause the device to perform a method including:

• selecting during a Web conference a third-party application executing in a presenter computing system contemporaneously with a conferencing application also executing in the presenter computing system;
• activating screen sharing in the conferencing application sharing a display screen of the third-party application with different attendees by way of respectively different attendee computers over a computer communications network;
• querying an access control interface of the third-party application for the attendees in order to receive access control data for the third-party application in respect to the attendees;
• identifying a protected data field in the display screen and determining whether or not one of the attendee computers is associated with one of several access control rules based upon the received access control data that prohibits display of content in the protected data field;
• and,
• masking the data field in the shared display screen for the one of the attendee computers while displaying remaining portions of the shared display screen in the one of the attendee computers.