August 16, 2023
Zoom has come under fire for quietly updating its terms of service in March 2023, and granting itself the authority to harvest data from customer accounts for AI-driven purposes. This includes potentially confidential meeting videos and file uploads.
The change went largely unnoticed until Zoom’s announcement of its partnership with AI firm Anthropic in May. This partnership aimed to introduce a virtual assistant named “Claude” and a tool called “Zoom IQ” designed to generate meeting summaries through AI technology. The alteration in the terms of service paved the way for Zoom to scrape video, audio, chat content, and even documents sent through the platform for training its AI models. Hence, the backlash.
Zoom adjusted its terms due to backlash, yet compliance with E.U. privacy laws is uncertain. E.U. states require personal data opt-in consent. Admin consent for mandatory meetings might not suffice in investigations. The ePrivacy Directive could be used by E.U. nations, citing wiretapping concerns and third-party data interception needing user consent.
In the wake of the backlash, Zoom has said that it will not use “audio, video, or chat Customer Content” as part of its AI data collection without user consent.
The sources for this piece include an article in CPOMAGAZINE.
