Zoom App Disables Data Mining Feature That Revealed Users' LinkedIn Details

Video conferencing app Zoom has now disabled a data-mining feature that linked users with their LinkedIn account with the help of their username & email address.

Video conferencing app Zoom has risen to popularity due to Covid-19 lockdown in various parts of the world. Millions of users have been using it to communicate with large groups of people while they stay indoors. The booming usage also led to severe criticism & controversy after several users reported security & privacy issues on the app. Zoom has now disabled a data-mining feature that linked users with their LinkedIn account with the help of their username & email address. This happens not only when a user has signed in, but also when a user is anonymous and is using a pseudonym on a call. The New York Times discovered that if a user has subscribed to a service called LinkedIn Sales Navigator, (s)he could access the LinkedIn profiles of all other people on the chat meeting, by clicking on the icon next to their names. The other users would not have any knowledge of the fact that their details were visible. Zoom has now said that the feature has been disabled. After reports of security & privacy issues received widespread attention, Zoom founder and CEO Eric S Yuan acknowledged the concerns in a blog post and wrote about a series of steps that will be undertaken to resolve these concerns. This includes a 90-day feature freeze where instead of bringing in new features & updates, the company will work on fixing existing issues. On March 27th, Zoom had updated its iOS app to remove the code that enabled users' device data to be shared with Facebook. It has also rewritten some parts of its privacy policy to be more clear and transparent around the data they collect and how it is used.