Zoom's new Terms of Service (TOS) has stirred controversy this week, with critics alleging that an updated section enables the training of AI on user content without users being able to opt-out.
The specific sections in Zoom's TOS are 10.2 and, in particular, 10.4, in which Zoom outlines its rights and intentions on how it will and will not utilise user data.
Zoom's updated TOS says that Zoom retains all rights to "Service Generated Data" — all data Zoom collected in connection with users' application of Zoom services or software — singularly. The service requests users "consent to Zoom's access, use, collection, creation, modification, distribution, processing, sharing, maintenance, and storage of Service Generated Data for any purpose to the extent and in the manner permitted under applicable law".
The part of Zoom's TOS that has prompted the controversy has been its mention of leveraging data for AI and machine learning, including "for the purposes of training and tuning of algorithms and models", which critics have interpreted as the TOS allowing Zoom to train its AI through user content without offering an opt-out.
The wording in Zoom's TOS, section 10.4, "Customer License Grant", reads that, by users agreeing to the updated TOS, they grant Zoom...
...a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license and all other rights required or necessary 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."
Critics have claimed that Zoom could take a user's face, body, voice, and confidential information disclosed in meetings or over chat to inform AI irrevocably.
However, Zoom has ardently opposed this reading of its new TOS.
Zoom's Response
Zoom, naturally, has railed back at what it is saying is misinformation.
Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan posted on LinkedIn that "given Zoom's value of care and transparency", the company would "absolutely never train AI models with customers' content without getting their explicit consent".
"Let me be crystal clear," Yuan continued, "for AI, we do NOT use audio, video, screen share, or chat content for training our AI models without customer explicit consent."
