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Zoom's Last Updated Privacy Terms of Services (ToS)

Writer's picture: Disha PatelDisha Patel

In March 2023, Zoom updated its terms of service entangling it in a nice little mess over privacy concerns. The entire fiasco was centred on Zoom's new AI-powered product, Zoom IQ’s features. With the new terms, Zoom claimed rights over users’ audio, video and chat data for improving its Artificial Program. 


The vagueness of the ToS is concerning for customers because there is no clear distinction about what and how data will be used. Zoom executives have clarified that users can decline to use Zoom’s AI platforms, however, there is currently no option to opt out of Section 10.4 of the terms, which concerns Zoom’s use of customer content as a whole. 


Here’s what the new terms said: “10.4 Customer License Grant. You agree to grant and hereby grant Zoom a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license and all other rights required or necessary to redistribute, publish, import, access, use, store, transmit, review, disclose, preserve, extract, modify, reproduce, share, use, display, copy, distribute, translate, transcribe, create derivate works, and process Customer Content and to perform all acts with respect to Customer Content…”


As per the Terms page, Zoom could access your data for providing better services to you and for product development, marketing, quality assurance and for AI and ML and training to improve its services. 


Responding to the backlash on every possible social platform, Zoom put out a blog clarifying how its applying the new T&C to its AI features on August 7, 2023. It updated the blog on August 11, 2023 claiming to “make it clear that Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments, or other communications like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard, and reactions) to train Zoom’s or third-party artificial intelligence models.” 


Zoom highlighted that it offers a choice to users to enable the “Meeting Summary” option which then allows its AI to send a summary of the meeting to users. However, the host of the meeting has the option of enabling or disabling summary - but the other participants don’t. 


Smita Hashim, the Chief Product Officer, who supposedly wrote the blog further tried to reassure users and obviously prevent a mass exodus to Zoom’s competitors with the following words: “We remain committed to transparency, and our aim is to provide you with the tools you need to make informed decisions about your Zoom account. We value your privacy and are continuously working to enhance our services while respecting your rights and preferences.”

But regular Zoom users or ‘Zoomers’ don’t seem to be too convinced. 


The simplest reason is the fact that participants in Zoom meetings don’t have a choice about whether their data is being handed over to Zoom or not. If the host, who could be their boss or a highly coveted client, chooses to accept the Meeting Summary option, a participant who needs to hold on to their job is highly unlikely to be able to drop out of the meeting citing privacy concerns.  


The other reason, as many experts have pointed out, is that Zoom isn’t very great at keeping its promises when it comes to privacy. In 2020, Zoom assured paid users of end-to-end encryption but a lawsuit alleged that Zoom had already offered this to everyone. It was further embroiled in another controversy for sharing user data with Google and Facebook without consent for which it paid $85 million in settlement.  

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