Zoom video calling service has seen a steep increase in the number of people using the App during the coronavirus pandemic. However, a recent report indicates that the application is secretly sharing all the data on the app with Facebook.
As per a report by Motherboard, Zoom’s iOS application has been sharing analytical data with Facebook. Shockingly, the app sends user’s data even if he/she doesn’t have an account on the social media platform. This is primarily because the app uses Facebook’s software development kits.
The report highlights that the moment Zoom app is opened, it connects to Facebook’s Graph API. The API is the main way developers get the data in or out of Facebook, reports Motherboard. Moving on, the app notifies Facebook when the user opens the app and it provides sensitive information like model, time zone, the city they are connecting from, phone carrier and a unique advertiser identifier, which is created by the user’s device.
This information can be used for targeted advertisements. Zoom’s policy stats that the company may collect user’s Facebook profile information if he/she log-in using a Facebook account, but it does not reveal anything about sending data to Facebook for those users who don’t have a Facebook account.
Previously, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) revealed that a host on a Zoom call can monitor activities of the participants while they are using a screen-sharing option. The report says that if a user records the video, the host is able to “access the contents of that recorded call, including video, audio, transcript, and chat files, as well as access to sharing, analytics, and cloud management privileges”.