After facing a massive backlash over the change of its terms, Zoom responds with a blog post explaining that it doesn’t train its AI over consumer data without its consent.
The video conferencing platform was earlier criticised for taking absolute control over users’ video, audio and chat data for training its AI features, which triggered everyone. Thus, it tries to soothe the community by offering them control over data sharing.
Modifying Terms Over AI Training
Zoom, the video conferencing solution that rose to quick popularity during the COVID-19 period, is now in the crosshairs of data privacy. Late last week, a report from StackDiary highlighted the recent changes in Zoom’s terms that appear to grant the company sweeping control over customer data for AI training purposes.
More specifically, the terms noted the right to “redistribute, publish, import, access, use, store, transmit, review, disclose, preserve, extract, modify, reproduce, share, use, display, copy, distribute, translate, transcribe, create derivative works, and process Customer Content and to perform all acts with respect to the Customer Content.”
This triggered the community, as they accused the video conferencing app on various online forums of their data privacy. So to clarify the backlash, Zoom today came up with a blog post detailing the terms and the rights users have over their data. Updating the terms, Zoom’s Chief Product Officer, Smita Hashim, said they don’t use consumer video, audio and chats to train their AI products “without user consent.”
Stressing that the account owners and administrators must consent to AI training, Hashim said the shared data will be “used solely to improve the performance and accuracy of these AI services.” Further, they assured us that they don’t use the data for training any third-party products.
