Zoom Video Communications Inc will offer users of its videoconferencing software end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for calls and launch a trial version in July. The feature will be available to both free and paid users, the company said on Wednesday.

In order to help prevent abuse, the feature will be available only to those users who provide a verified phone number.

After the coronavirus outbreak forced more people to work from home, the California-based company has attracted millions of free and paying customers. The company has faced a lot of criticism over privacy and security issues. In March, Zoom had disclosed that its service was not fully end-to-end encrypted.

However, the company has explored new technologies to offer E2EE to all tiers of users.

“To make this possible, Free/Basic users seeking access to E2EE will participate in a one-time process that will prompt the user for additional pieces of information, such as verifying a phone number via a text message,” the company said in a blogpost.

The company plans to begin the early beta of the E2EE feature in July 2020. It intends to have some level of permissions so account administrators can disable or enable it at the account or group level.

(With agency inputs)