Google has banned its employees from using the Zoom video conferencing app on their work laptops, citing security concerns.
Zoom, a free teleconferencing application owned by Zoom Video Communications Inc, has risen in popularity since people started working from home to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the world.
Its use has, however, raised multiple security and privacy concerns.
“We have long had a policy of not allowing employees to use unapproved apps for work that are outside of our corporate network,” Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News.
“Recently, our security team informed employees using Zoom Desktop Client that it will no longer run on corporate computers as it does not meet our security standards for apps used by our employees,” he added.
Schools in New York City were banned from using Zoom for remote teaching.
Zoom lacks end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions and can easily be infiltrated by allowing uninvited guests to join meetings, a phenomenon widely referred to as “zoombombing”.
The video conferencing app was initially meant for enterprises to run webinars and meetings but is now being used by locked-down people around the world for gym sessions, education classes, cocktail parties, and even to attend funerals.
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Its user numbers surged from just 10 million in December to more than 200 million people in March as COVID-19 lockdown measures swept across the world.
