UPDATE: still donât use ZOOM until they sort out their mess.
Zoom, the videoconferencing app whose traffic has surged during the coronavirus pandemic, is under scrutiny by the office of New Yorkâs attorney general, Letitia James, for its data privacy and security practices.
On Monday, the office sent Zoom a letter asking what, if any, new security measures the company has put in place to handle increased traffic on its network and to detect hackers, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.
While the letter referred to Zoom as âan essential and valuable communications platform,â it outlined several concerns, noting that the company had been slow to address security flaws such as vulnerabilities âthat could enable malicious third parties to, among other things, gain surreptitious access to consumer webcams.â
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As Zoomâs popularity has grown, the app has scrambled to address a series of data privacy and security problems, a reactive approach that has led to complaints from some consumer, privacy and childrenâs groups.
The company updated its privacy policy on Sunday after users reported concerns, and on Monday, Eric S. Yuan, chief executive and founder of Zoom, posted a link on Twitter to a company blog item about the policy.
In a statement for this article, the company said it took âits usersâ privacy, security and trust extremely seriously,â and had been âworking around the clock to ensure that hospitals, universities, schools and other businesses across the world can stay connected and operational.â
âWe appreciate the New York attorney generalâs engagement on these issues and are happy to provide her with the requested information,â the statement added.
Last week, after an article on the news site Motherboard reported that software inside the Zoom iPhone app was sending user data to Facebook, the company said it was removing the tracking software.
As many school districts adopted Zoom to allow teachers to host live lessons with students, some childrenâs privacy experts and parents said they were particularly concerned about how childrenâs personal details might be used. Some districts have prohibited educators from using Zoom as a distance-learning platform.
âThere is so much we simply donât know about Zoomâs privacy practices,â said John Golin, executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a nonprofit group in Boston.
In the letter, Ms. Jamesâs office cited reports that Zoom had shared data with Facebook, and asked for further information on âthe categories of data that Zoom collects, as well as the purposes and entities to whom Zoom provides consumer data.â
The office expressed concern that the app may be circumventing state requirements protecting student data. To help educators, the company recently expanded meeting limits on free accounts. The attorney generalâs office called such efforts âlaudable,â but also said the company appeared to be trying to offload consent requirements to schools.
The office requested a description of Zoomâs policy for obtaining and verifying consent in primary and secondary schools as well as a description of third parties who received data related to children.
Zoom has said its service for schools complies with federal laws on educational privacy and student privacy.
The letter also asked for details about any changes the company put in place after a security researcher, Jonathan Leitschuh, exposed a flaw allowing hackers to take over Zoom webcams. The letter noted that the company did not address problem until after the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research center, filed a complaint about Zoom with the Federal Trade Commission last year.
best describes what COPPA is:
