Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan announced that the company will provide end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to all users of the video conferencing app. All users will have to do to get this feature is “verify” accounts their by providing additional identifying information, such as their phone number.
“We are pleased to announce that we have identified a path forward that balances all users’ legitimate right to privacy and security on our platform,” Yuan said.
“This will allow us to offer end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for all users around the world, whether they use the app for free or not. At the same time, we will be able to prevent and combat any abuse on the Zoom platform.”
Zoom had initially announced (May 27) that end-to-end encryption would only be available to paying customers . Users using the app for free would only have access to 256-bit GCM encryption.
Verifying accounts to activate E2EE
As we said above, Zoom users will first need to verify accounts through various means, such as using their phone number.
“Many leading companies require similar steps in account creation to reduce the mass creation of fake accounts,” Zoom’s CEO explained.
“We are confident that with the implementation of authentication and our current tools, including the Report a User, we can continue to prevent and combat abuse.”
An initial encryption blueprint for Zoom's planned E2EE offering was published on GitHub on May 22. Yesterday, a second updated version.
End -to-end encryption on Zoom will be available from July 2020
According to Yuan's announcement, an early beta version of the E2EE feature on Zoom will be released starting in July 2020.
Account administrators will be able to enable or disable 2EE at both the team and account levels, as it will be available as an optional feature.
Zoom users will still be able to use the current AES 256 GCM encryption ( the default encryption), which, according to Yuan, is “one of the strongest encryption standards in use today.”
