Zoom Starts End-To-End Encryption For All Users

Zoom is one of the winners of the corona crisis and in some respects the young company was sometimes a bit too fast. So there were some excitements, including the fact that end-to-end encryption is not available for everyone.

Communication providers have multiplied their user numbers in the past few months, but above all Zoom. Because zoom meetings and video conferences have in a way become synonymous with working during the lockdown. However, the company was faced with numerous minor and major breakdowns and data protection problems. One reacted quite consistently and made improvements in many cases, but sometimes one acted rather unhappily.

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) now for everyone

Among other things, end-to-end encryption was announced, but only for users of the payment rail. To make matters worse, the CEO of Zoom justified this decision by making it easier for the police and authorities to find out who is up to evil. The background to these statements was, among other things, the so-called zoom bombing with partly pornographic content.

As far as end-to-end encryption is concerned, Zoom has changed its mind and will offer end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for all users. In a blog post, Zoom wrote that after discussions with data protection and civil rights organizations as well as authorities and users, the decision was made to offer E2EE for all of its channels.

E2EE has a “price”

The updated E2EE design in this direction can be viewed on GitHub. However, the whole thing has a “catch”, which definitely takes up the argumentation of child protection and zoom bombing: If you want to use the free-to-end encryption as a user of the free version, you have to leave certain information once, including your telephone number, which also needs to be verified. These would be given to authorities by order of the authorities to investigate criminals.