Zoom on Wednesday announced its offer allowing users of its videoconferencing software to enable end-to-end encryption of calls starting with beta next month.
The feature will be coming for both, paid as well to free users, and will be a toggle switch any call admin can turn on or disable, in the event, they want to allow traditional phone lines or older conference room phones to join, reported The Verge. “To make this possible, Free/Basic users seeking access to E2EE will participate in a one-time process that will prompt the user for additional pieces of information, such as verifying a phone number via a text message,” The Verge quoted the company’s blog post as saying in line to prevent the app from using for any unlawful activity.
“Many leading companies perform similar steps on account creation to reduce the mass creation of abusive accounts. We are confident that by implementing risk-based authentication, in combination with our current mix of tools — including our Report a User function — we can continue to prevent and fight abuse,” the post further read.
Zoom says free users will get end-to-end encryption after all https://t.co/VENInZoBWl pic.twitter.com/VpucYE9Lfw
— The Verge (@verge) June 18, 2020
The company will also be using AES 256 GCM transport encryption as its default, which it describes as “one of the strongest encryption standards in use today.”
However, it’s not clear when the feature will launch, but the beta is arriving in July and Zoom intends to have some level of permissions so account administrators can disable or enable it at the account or group level.
