Zoom to offer end-to-end encryption for all users

SAN FRANCISCO: Zoom Video Communications is planning to offer all its free and paying users end-to-end encryption for video calls and will launch a trial version in July.

The company’s business has boomed with the coronavirus lockdowns forcing more people to work from home and has transformed into a global video hangout from a business-oriented teleconferencing tool.

It has also come under fire over privacy and security issues and faced criticism for failing to disclose that its service was not fully end-to-end encrypted. Many institutions banned Zoom after a series of security failures

The company hired former chief security officer at Facebook Alex Stamos in April and rolled out major upgrades. Zoom released a technical paper on encryption plans in May but did not say how widely they would reach.

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Zoom has attracted millions of free and paying customers amid the pandemic, in part because users could join a meeting without registering. This has allowed opportunities for troublemakers to slip into meetings sometimes after pretending to be invitees.

Stamos had earlier said full encryption for every meeting would leave Zoom’s trust and safety team unable to add itself as a participant in gatherings to tackle abuse in realtime.

An end-to-end encryption model, which means no one but the participants and their devices can see and hear what is happening, would exclude people who call in from a telephone line.

Facebook is planning to fully encrypt Messenger but it earns enormous sums from its other services. Other providers of encrypted communication either charge business users or act as nonprofits, such as the makers of Signal.