New York schools are banned from using Zoom for online classes amid raising security concerns

(Edited)/Photo by Kentaro Toma on Unsplash

The video conferencing app Zoom has faced several accusations of having several security flaws that compromise the users' privacy and personal data, the new flaws were been found as the usage of online video conferencing apps was increasing as people are following self-quarantine in their homes, reported by Apple Insider.

Many teachers and students are using these services as the schools were shut down for the foreseeable future until the situation of COVID-19 comes under control, many schools are following this process to complete the syllabus until the schools are open again or maybe not at all for this academic year.

So, to protect the privacy of students and teachers, New York City's Department of Education has banned the usage of Zoom to conduct online classes. There are many complaints of "Zoombombing," a process in which an intruder sneaks into a video call or conference and yells bad language or shows explicit visuals.

The intruder can also stay silent and listen to the conversation of the video call without the knowledge of the participants, FBI had released a statement warning the users who are using Zoom for their video calling and conferencing purposes, they said that they've received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language.

Beside Video calls being interrupted by strangers in Zoom, Zoom was also been accused of sending user data to Facebook, the data includes the device that the user is using, the time of opening the app and the carrier they're using. Recently SpaceX has banned its employees from using Zoom and advised to switch to emailing, texting, or use phone calls as alternatives.