Due to the coronavirus outbreak, most of the cities are under lockdown globally. With people staying at their homes, the usage of video conferencing apps like Zoom has increased.
But a new concern has been raised by many users that the popular video-conferencing app is leaking user’s sensitive information including photos and email addresses.
According to Vice, there’s some issue in the app’s Company Directory setting which is giving strangers the ability to make video calls. The service was configured to make it easier to find a specific colleague to call when the domain belongs to an individual company.
However, users are reporting that they signed up with personal email addresses but the service pooled them with thousands of strangers. This issue has exposed their personal information.
The official website of the company states, “By default, your Zoom contacts directory contains internal users in the same organization, who are either on the same account or who’s email address uses the same domain as yours (except for publicly used domains including gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc) in the Company Directory section.”
A user reported the issue on Twitter stating, “I just had a look at the free for private use version of Zoom and registered with my private email. I now got 1000 names, email addresses and even pictures of people in the company Directory. Is this intentional?”
According to Bloomberg, a user recently filed a class action lawsuit against the company for the data transfer. The New York Attorney General also sent a letter to Zoom asking about the security measures the company had taken as the app has gained huge popularity.
While we are still waiting to hear from the company about the issue, we would recommend users to take extra precautions while using the service. However, if you are looking for alternatives, here are a few options that you may like.