India Warns Government Officials Against Using Zoom Over Security Fears
India declares Zoom an unsafe platform and prohibits government employees from using it for official purposes. The advisory follows similar actions by Germany and Taiwan amid growing global scrutiny of the app's privacy practices.
India officially declares Zoom an unsafe platform and advises all government employees to avoid using the video conferencing app for official purposes. The nation's Cyber Coordination Centre issues a detailed 16-page advisory that explicitly prohibits government officers from relying on the service as it surges in popularity during the coronavirus lockdown.
This warning aligns India with several other nations and major corporations, including Germany, Taiwan, Google, Apple, NASA, and Tesla, that restrict Zoom usage due to recent security and privacy lapses. Despite these concerns, the app experiences unprecedented consumer traction in India, achieving over 450,000 daily downloads and prompting several Indian ministers to publicly use the platform.
In response to the growing backlash, Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan apologizes for the security issues and shifts the company's focus toward privacy rather than new feature development. The firm brings on former Facebook security officer Alex Stamos as an advisor and emphasizes that many global institutions continue to trust Zoom after conducting exhaustive security reviews of its systems.