A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court, asking the government to ban video conferencing app Zoom in the country, for official and personal use until “appropriate legislation was put in place.”

The PIL said that the CEO of Zoom, Eric S Yuan, has publically apologized for privacy lapses, highlighting the security shortcomings in the app.

The PIL red-flagged practices of “data hoarding” and “cyber hoarding” of user data. The PIL also raised the issue of numerous instances of unauthorized persons gaining access to an online meeting, often bombarding the digital meeting with pornographic or hate messages.

The plea said that Zoom has consistently failed to provide reasonable levels of safety measures, and falsely claimed that it provided end-to-end encryption. The plea also claimed that there were digital gateways that can be abused intentionally to leak sensitive information. Such laxity, as per the plea, exposed users to cybersecurity and privacy hazards.

The plea also submitted that Zoom had publically apologized for routing traffic through China, where internet is heavily monitored by the government.

First Published:May 20, 2020 7:22 PM IST