Supreme Court, on Friday, issued a notice to Centre after PIL filed against zoom, a video conferencing app. Harsh Chugh, a resident of Delhi files a plea against the Zoom app. He claims that the app violates the provisions of the Information Technology Act.
The petition further claimed data hoarding and cyber hoarding by zoom. Zoom has made users “vulnerable and prone to cyber threats,” alleges Harsh. Moreover “Zoom is reported to have a bug that can be abused intentionally to leak information of users to third parties. The app has been falsely claiming calls are end-to-end encrypted when they are not,” Chugh added in his petition.
The exponential growth in the users of the Zoom app from 10 million in December 2019 to 200 million in March 2020 has also been highlighted by the petitioner. There is an increase in the users due to the lockdown constraints induced by the current pandemic.
“Zoom was capitalizing off the pandemic by selling users’ information to Facebook without their consent. Zoom is sending the data it collects from the computer of its users even if they weren’t logged on to a Facebook account,” Chugh further added.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde asks Union Government to respond to the plea seeking a ban on the video conferencing app ‘Zoom’. The court directed the government to reply in four weeks.
Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on April 1, advised the secure use of Zoom through its cyber coordination committee.
Zoom responded by addressing privacy and security concerns on Saturday. Zoom spokesperson in a statement said “ Zoom takes user privacy, security, and trust extremely seriously. We have been focused on enhancing our commitment to security and privacy under our 90-day plan announced April 1st, and have made significant progress.”
“In India, we’ve been proud to help businesses, government agencies, communities, school teachers, and other users stay connected during this challenging and unprecedented time,” he added in his statement.
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