Zoom says that end-to-end encryption is only available for paid users

Photo by Allie on Unsplash

Zoom has been subject to controversy during the lockdown period when its popularity rose along with its privacy issues like zoombombing, where intruders will interfere in a video conference and show explicit visuals or use abusive language just to harass the members of that conference, many schools have complained about this.

However, Zoom looked into this as soon as the reports reached them and now Zoombombing is not much of an issue and was very rarely reported around the world, during a webinar session with the investors to discuss the first-quarter earnings of the company, CEO Eric Yuan said that end-to-end encryption feature will be exclusive to paid members only, however, the is a reason for this decision.

This is a cautious decision taken by the company, the reason Zoom CEO has given is that they want to work along with FBI and local authorities and cooperate with them whenever they need access to a video call when there is abuse or harassment or any other criminal act where authorities need to investigate.

Zoom CEO said in the webinar that "We think this feature should be a part of our offering” for professional customers, free users — for sure we don’t want to give [them] that, because we also want to work together with the FBI, with local law enforcement, in case some people use Zoom for a bad purpose."

While satisfying their customers Zoom also want to be working with authorities, that's why Zoom left the storing encryption feature to the paid users, while an online conversation, whether it is chat or video call is end-to-end encrypted, even the service provider(in this case, Zoom) will not have access to the conversation, it will not be stored in their servers, WhatsApp implemented this long back for protecting their user's privacy.

Concerning this decision, Zoom later released a statement saying "Zoom does not proactively monitor meeting content, and we do not share information with law enforcement except in circumstances like child sex abuse. We do not have backdoors where participants can enter meetings without being visible to others. None of this will change, Zoom’s end-to-end encryption plan balances the privacy of its users with the safety of vulnerable groups, including children and potential victims of hate crimes. We plan to provide end-to-end encryption to users for whom we can verify identity, thereby limiting harm to these vulnerable groups. Free users sign up with an email address, which does not provide enough information to verify identity."

Via, The Verge.