Zoom Explains Why Free s Are Not Getting End 544151 to-End Encryption on Video Calls

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan has said that end-to-end encryption was only limited to Zoom s. 3ku6t

By Abhik Sengupta | Updated: 4 June 2020 13:03 IST

Zoom Explains Why Free s Are Not Getting End-to-End Encryption on Video Calls

Zoom through its official Twitter tried to clarify Yuan's statement 2bp8

Highlights

Zoom says all s (free and paid) have their meetings encrypted
Zoom's Trust and Safety team can enter a zoom call in case of abuse
Zoom says it does not proactively monitor content in meetings

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Zoom Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan has sparked a controversy after the executive said that the company would not offer the strongest end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for free calls to make sure it was able to work with law enforcement. During a conference call on Tuesday, Yuan suggested that the E2EE security would only be provided to Zoom s rather than the millions of free s of the platform. With these comments, several s on Twitter criticised the company for compromising basic security that is offered by even rivals such as WhatsApp, Google Duo, and Facetime. In the meantime, the company's security consultant Alex Stamos took to Twitter to pacify this situation and to explain why the company has taken this decision with E2EE security.

In a series of posts, Stamos Zoom is facing a "difficult balancing act" of trying to improve privacy while also "reducing the human impact of the abuse of its product." The security consultant here is referring to "hate speech, exposure to children and other illegal behaviours" that have infected Zoom in recent times. Stamos further indicated that "self-service s" or the non- s often use fake identities for disrupting the platform with such abuses. The executive cleared that the E2EE was also provided to enterprises such as schools and other educational institutes that are not paying a .

Some facts on Zoom's current plans for E2E encryption, which are complicated by the product requirements for an enterprise conferencing product and some legitimate safety issues.

The E2E design is available here:https://t.co/beLdeAwMSM
— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) June 3, 2020

"Will this eliminate all abuse? No, but since the vast majority of harm comes from self-service s with fake identities this will create friction and reduce harm," the Twitter post reads.

Stamos also claimed that Zoom did not proactively monitor content in meetings and would not in the future, however, he contradicted the statement by saying that Zoom's Trust and Safety team could enter a zoom call "if they have a strong belief that the meeting is abusive."

"All s (free and paid) have their meeting content encrypted using a per-meeting AES256 key. Content is encrypted by the sending client and decrypted by receiving clients or by Zoom's connector servers to bridge into the PSTN network and other services," he says.

During the conference call on Tuesday, Zoom CEO and Founder Eric Yuan, said, "Free s, for sure, we don't want to give that because we also want to work together with the FBI, with local law enforcement, in case some people use Zoom for the bad purpose." He remarks courted controversy and several s on Twitter complained about the company's .

Similarly, Zoom through its official Twitter also tried to clarify Yuan's statement. In a post, the company said "Zoom does not provide information to law enforcement except in circumstances such as child sex abuse."

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