Last week, we reported that the popular video-conferencing app Zoom had a concerning privacy issue, when Vice’s Motherboard informed us that the app was sharing data with Facebook, even for people who didn’t have a Facebook account.
Now, Motherboard brings to our attention that Zoom has removed the code from its iOS app that was sending data to Facebook and is now offering the new version of the code with an update. The app used Facebook’s software development kits (SDKs) on its backend and therefore it sent analytics data, mainly related to targeted ads, to Facebook, without notifying the app’s users in its privacy policy.
However, Zoom’s CEO, Eric S. Yuan, apologized in a blog post about the concern raised by the situation. He stated that Zoom users’ privacy is extremely important to the company and that they have decided to remove Facebook’s SDK from the iOS app. Additionally, he said that the information, sent to Facebook, did not include names, notes, attendees or any meeting-related information, but data about devices’ OS and some technical specifications.
He also provided the following list of example information that the SDK was sending to Facebook:
- Application Bundle Identifier
- Application Instance ID
- Application Version
- Device Carrier
- iOS Advertiser ID
- iOS Device CPU Cores
- iOS Device Disk Space Available
- iOS Device Disk Space Remaining
- iOS Device Display Dimensions
- iOS Device Model
- iOS Language
- iOS Timezone
- iOS Version
- IP Address
The update is now available for download for Zoom for iOS from Apple’s App Store. With the new version, users will be able to log in using their Facebook account only through a browser, and not directly from the app. Previously, the in-app Facebook login was associated with the now removed Facebook SDKs.