British PM Using Zoom For Cabinet Meetings - But How Sensible Is That

The Zoom video conferencing app has blown up out of all proportion as a result of the global, ongoing lockdowns; which see people working from home and prevented from socialising in their free time. It's not just the average Joe either, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been using the app to run meetings with his cabinet whilst in self-isolation.

Given Zoom's questionable record in user security and data management, you have to question the wisdom of that particular decision.

You might remember, for example, that Zoom was the app which installed a secret web server which allowed easy access to your web cam - for hackers anyway. Zoom claimed it was a feature and the worst thing was that the web server was left behind even when the app was uninstalled. This was so bad that Apple took the almost unprecedented step of pushing out a MacOS security update just to remove it from customer's computers.

Things don't end here though. It appears that Zoom's current smartphone app sent analytics data to… Facebook. Even if you don't have a Facebook account, Zoom allowed that information to be shared. Even after Zoom pushed out an update to remove that particular feature, its commitment to privacy is questionable. Which makes using it as a tool to bring the government's senior figures together, seem very risky indeed.

The Government has access to Microsoft's Enterprise Agreements and unquestionable has the use of Teams. Why would controls not have been implemented to prevent the use of unauthorised conferencing tools?