So you think Zoom has been the only one that kept your privacy at risk? Then it’s time to think again as details regarding the privacy policies of Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx state that all three of them are also collecting data that might just be way above your expectations.
We live in a sad world when it comes to the matters of privacy and every day a research team scares us more. Thus, this time around Consumer Reports has been the first one to catch certain clauses in the privacy contracts of all of the above-mentioned apps which state that these companies hold the right to save all the information related to all the calls you make.
While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Google Meet and other apps are unsafe still they most likely hold the control of knowing how long your call lasts, people who are participating in the call, and the IP addresses of everyone involved in a conference call.
That being said, it is you who make the deal of sharing your personal details by agreeing to the privacy policy.
With COVID-19 pandemic here to stay for a while, we are now sure about the fact that video conferencing calls are going to be an integral part of the near future. Now as every official call may contain some private information that should definitely be kept inside the organization, this leads to the need for scrutinizing the data protection policies of such services more and more.
Furthermore, Consumer Reports also noted that these apps might be collecting data to combine it with details from other sources and create personal profile of users or usage habits. There are also chances that these videos might be getting used for training facial recognition systems.
All in all, when together these three companies were asked about the issue, they told Consumer Reports that they only record videos or save transcripts when users themselves request to save them. They promise that the recordings won’t be directly used for advertising purposes.
Read next: Looking for some privacy protected video chat apps to help during the COVID-19 crisis? Here’s some insight on the best ones
We live in a sad world when it comes to the matters of privacy and every day a research team scares us more. Thus, this time around Consumer Reports has been the first one to catch certain clauses in the privacy contracts of all of the above-mentioned apps which state that these companies hold the right to save all the information related to all the calls you make.
While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Google Meet and other apps are unsafe still they most likely hold the control of knowing how long your call lasts, people who are participating in the call, and the IP addresses of everyone involved in a conference call.
That being said, it is you who make the deal of sharing your personal details by agreeing to the privacy policy.
With COVID-19 pandemic here to stay for a while, we are now sure about the fact that video conferencing calls are going to be an integral part of the near future. Now as every official call may contain some private information that should definitely be kept inside the organization, this leads to the need for scrutinizing the data protection policies of such services more and more.
Furthermore, Consumer Reports also noted that these apps might be collecting data to combine it with details from other sources and create personal profile of users or usage habits. There are also chances that these videos might be getting used for training facial recognition systems.
All in all, when together these three companies were asked about the issue, they told Consumer Reports that they only record videos or save transcripts when users themselves request to save them. They promise that the recordings won’t be directly used for advertising purposes.
Read next: Looking for some privacy protected video chat apps to help during the COVID-19 crisis? Here’s some insight on the best ones
