Zoom Abandons Plan to Utilize User Data for Artificial Intelligence Development
Zoom has revised its terms of service following criticism over its recent updates that allowed AI training on customer data. The changes, which were implemented in March without much attention, seemed to give the company extensive control over customer data for AI training. In light of this, Zoom released a blog post today stating that it would not engage in the activities outlined in its terms. As a result of ongoing backlash, the company has now updated its terms to clarify that it will not train AI models using consumer video, audio, or chats without customer consent.
At least part of the problem stemmed from Zoom’s experimental AI tools, including IQ Meeting Summary (ML-powered summaries) and IQ Team Chat Compose (AI-powered message drafting). While account owners must provide consent before starting a meeting using these tools, other participants are presented with only two options: accept the terms and join the meeting, or reject them and leave the meeting.
“The express mention of the company’s right to use this data for machine learning and artificial intelligence, including the training and tuning of algorithms and models, is alarming,” Alex Ivanovs wrote for Stack Diary. “This allows Zoom to exercise its AI on customer content without providing an opt-out option. This decision is likely to spark significant debate about user privacy and consent.” Ivanovs highlighted how the terms give it the right to “distribute, publish, import, use, use, store, transmit, review, disclose, retain, extract, modify, reproduce, distribute, use, display, copy, distribute, translate, transcribe, create derivative works and process the Customer Content and perform all actions regarding the Customer Content.”
In a company blog post today, Zoom product manager Smita Hashim emphasized that account owners and administrators must indeed provide consent before choosing to share their data for AI training, insisting that it “will be used solely to improve the performance and accuracy of these AI services.” Hashim added that “even if you choose to share your data, it will not be used to train any third-party models.” He continued, “We have permission to use this customer content to provide value-added services based on this content, but our customers still own and control their content. For example, the customer can organize a webinar, which he asks us to stream on YouTube. Even if we use the customer’s video and audio content for streaming, they own the underlying content.”
“We do not use customer content, including training data or protected health information, to train our AI models without your consent,” the blog post reads. A new section added to Zoom’s terms today clarifies: “Notwithstanding the above, Zoom will not use audio, video or chat client content to train our AI models without your consent.”
“Our goal is to give Zoom account owners and admins control over these features and decisions, and we’re here to shed some light on how we do that and how it affects certain customer groups,” Hashim wrote.
