Zoom, the videoconferencing app, has seen an upsurge of use thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak. Millions of people around the world are using it for work and teachers are using it to teach their students online.
However, Motherboard found out that Zoom was sending data to Facebook on their iOS app. They were sending such information like when a user opened the app, their timezone, city and device details to Facebook.
Facebook doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to such data thanks to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and this of course was a source of concern. Motherboard went ahead to analyze Zoom’s privacy policy which had not made the data transfer to Facebook clear.
Well, Zoom has now issued an update to their iOS app which has stopped it sending certain pieces of data to Facebook.
“We originally implemented the ‘Login with Facebook’ feature using the Facebook SDK in order to provide our users with another convenient way to access our platform. However, we were recently made aware that the Facebook SDK was collecting unnecessary device data,” they told Motherboard. Zoom further added that the Facebook SDK did not include any personal user information.
Zoom had 12.92 million active users at the end of 2019, but thanks to the pandemic, they have apparently added 2.22 million more users in 2020 that was 3.5 times the same period last year. Last month, they lifted their 40 minute limit on their basic plan for free users so that people can collaborate.
