A few days ago, it was discovered that the popular video conferencing app, Zoom was sending telemetry information for iOS users to Facebook without clearly informing the user. A day later, Zoom issued an update to its iOS app to remove the code that sent information to Facebook and also updated its privacy policy.
Zoom app’s popularity surged as the Coronavirus pandemic has forced nearly everyone to be quarantined at home. Its ease of use in video conferencing with a large number of people has been useful for colleges and universities to hold online classroom lectures.
Recently, in a Motherboard article by Joseph Cox, it was discovered that Zoom for iOS app was sending information to Facebook like when a user opened the app, their timezone, city, and device details, etc. The article also noted that Zoom did not mention its data sending habits to Facebook in its privacy policy.
Zoom quickly acknowledged the mistake and apologized the next day. In a blog post, it explained how the reason for the data sending behavior was due to the fact that Zoom used the “Login with Facebook” SDK for its iOS app. The SDK was automatically information to Facebook’s servers and Zoom was initially unaware of it. They have released in an update in the meantime, removing the SDK code but still allowing users to sign in via Facebook through the browser. Zoom has recommended all users to quickly update their app to ensure it has the latest changes.
Zoom updated its Privacy Policy to reflect the changes and it can be accessed here. You can download the Zoom Cloud Meetings for iOS app from the App Store and the Android version can be downloaded from the Play Store.