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No, Zoom does not use private conversations or chats to train AI models. Since yesterday, this specter has mainly been going around in social networks. The video conferencing software provider’s terms of use have not changed since March 2023. Until a few hours ago. However, Zoom did not introduce the use of data to train AI models. Rather, the company has made it clear that neither audio, video nor chats are used for these purposes. Nevertheless: A passage that went viral guarantees Zoom the right to use data for AI, at least to a limited extent.
First, a post on X, formerly Twitter, and LinkedIn seems to have made the rounds, saying that Zoom recently changed its terms of service and is now allowed to use all user data to train AI models. There would be no way to disagree. The posting person also regrets that there is no opt-out even for doctors, lawyers and therapists. And then there is a reference to another tool, namely Whereby, which also offers video conferencing solutions. The fact that the outcry is accompanied by a reference to a competing program makes one skeptical.
In the passage of the terms of use, however, it actually said something lengthy: “You agree to the access, use, collection, creation, modification, distribution, processing, sharing, maintenance and storage of data generated via the service for any purpose, to the extent and in the manner permitted by applicable law, including for the purpose of product and service development, marketing, analytics, quality assurance, machine learning and artificial intelligence (including for the purpose of training and fine-tuning algorithms and model)…” And it also says, somewhat vaguely, that the rights to “user content” would be assigned – for machine learning and AI, among other things.
From Zoom’s previous Terms of Use.
Zoom adjusts terms of service
After the outcry on the net, Zoom has now made it explicitly clear that audio, video and chat content will not be used to train AI models without user consent. The terms of use have been reworded accordingly. There it is pointed out, for example, that the data protection declaration also applies in addition to the terms of use. Another explanation concerns the term “service generated data” – these are telemetry data and data for diagnosis, not user conversations. When asked by heise online, a Zoom spokeswoman said: “Zoom users decide for themselves whether they want to activate generative AI functions and whether they want to share content with Zoom in order to improve our products. We have updated our terms of use to clarify that we will not use audio, video or chat content to train our artificial intelligence without the customer’s consent.”
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The user content would only be processed for AI functions, such as the ability provided by Zoom to receive summaries of video conferences. According to the blog post, Zoom wanted to avoid having to ask for permission every time this feature was used. In principle, however, these functions are opt-in. Admins and users can enable or disable them. However, if you use the Zoom IQ Meeting Summary, i.e. the summary function, or the Chat Compose writing aid, there is a reference to consent to the use of the data. This also applies to the training of AI models.
Zoom also makes it clear that there are separate contracts and terms of use for students and in the health sector.
Update 08/08/2023 11:30 am
We have added a statement from Zoom.
(emw)
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