Zoom’s New TOS Criticized for Allegedly Enabling AI Training on User Content

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.”

Likewise, Zoom COO Aparna Bawa commented to Hacker News that customers can decide whether to enable generative AI features and separately whether to allow Zoom to leverage customer content for “product improvement purposes”.

“Also, Zoom participants receive an in-meeting notice, or a Chat Compose pop-up when these features are enabled through our UI, and they will definitely know their data may be used for product improvement purposes,” she added.

Indeed, in a Zoom blog post published after the TOS was updated, Chief Product Officer Smita Hashim wrote that for Zoom’s new AI-powered features, Zoom IQ Meeting Summary and Zoom IQ Team Chat Compose, IT admins and owners can choose whether to enable them or not.

Hashim outlined that users will also “be presented with a transparent consent process for training our AI models using your customer content after enabling. Your content is used solely to improve the performance and accuracy of these AI services.”

Hashim also iterates twice that Zoom does not “use audio, video, or chat content for training our models without customer consent”, echoing Yuan’s assertion.

Zoom later amended Section 10.4 of the new TOS with a version of that statement, adding: “For AI, we do not use audio, video, or chat content for training our models without customer consent.”

However, critics have noted that the amendment only applies to “customer content” and not “Service Generated Data”, which are distinguished as different arenas in 10.2. Service Generated Data includes “any telemetry data, product usage data, diagnostic data, and similar content or data that Zoom collects or generates in connection with your or your End Users’ use of the Services.”

Technically, Zoom is allowed to use Service Generated Data for any purpose at the moment of publication because it is not “customer content”.