With the Coronavirus continuing to spread globally, and an increase in the number of people working from home, the last thing companies turning to remote work want, is privacy concerns with one of the most popular remote working tools.
That is exactly what they are getting with the Zoom Video Calling application. Zoom acquired 2.2 million users last month as more people work from home but recent research conducted by Motherboard revealed that the iOS application for Zoom sends user data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account.
Zoom uses Facebook’s software development kits (SDKs) to access certain features. This, in turn, means Facebook can access some information from Zoom users but it seems Zoom did not disclose in their privacy policy that this was happening.
What data is being sent to Facebook?
- when the user opens the app;
- details on the user’s device such as the model, the time zone and city they are connecting from;
- which phone network they are using;
- a unique advertiser identifier;
Whilst all this isn’t necessarily a disaster, there are some concerns because ZOOM wasn’t notifying users that their data was being handled as such. The company acknowledged sharing user data with other entities such as Google but left out Facebook somehow;
Our third-party service providers, and advertising partners (e.g., Google Ads and Google Analytics) automatically collect some information about you when you use our Products
Facebook privacy policy
Update: Zoom recently updated the iOS application and it no longer shares information with Facebook
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