The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Central Government on a plea seeking ban on the use of ‘Zoom App’ for official and personal use until a legislation is made and to carry out an exhaustive technical study into the security and privacy risks of use of ‘Zoom App’.
The bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Hrishikesh Roy was hearing a petition filed by Wajeeh Shafiq on behalf of Mrs Harsh Chugh highlighting the privacy and security risk posed by ‘Zoom’ Application, one of the most overused applications for enabling video communications i.e. for video and audio conferencing, meetings, chats and webinars.
The petitioner has submitted that the petition has been filed in view of various facts and incidents reported by the media sources against breaching of cyber security through ‘Zoom App’, The ‘Zoom App’ is available free of cost in App Stores on all smart phones, tablets, laptops and computer and hence is easy to download and use or misuse.
The petitioner has further pointed out that the CEO of ‘Zoom Video Communications’ has already apologised publically and has accepted the app to be faulty in terms of providing a secure environment digitally which is against the norms of cyber security.
The petitioner has also pointed out that the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology and Cyber & Information Security(C&IS) Division of MHA is well aware of the security breaches, however neither the app has been banned nor any steps have been taken to protect the general public.
It has been also stated that “there have been concerns about what now is being called ‘zoombombing’ where an unauthorized person or stranger joins a Zoom meeting/chat session and causes disorder by saying offensive things and even photo bombing the meeting by sharing pornographic and/or hate images.”
Moreover, in times of lockdown all the schools, agencies, corporates and in fact the court of law including the Supreme Court of India and various other High Courts have resorted to function through video conferencing. While the Supreme Court has adopted Vidyo Mobile/ Computer App for its functioning as the same is vetted by the National Informatics Center (NIC), some other High Courts are still using Zoom App.
Read the petition here;
Writ-Petition-zoom-India Legal Bureau