Zoom makes video calls more secure, offers end-to-end encryption for users

To make calls more secure, video conferencing app Zoom has announced that from next week onwards it will be offering end-to-end encryption to users.

“We’re excited to announce that starting next week, Zoom’s end-to-end encryption (E2EE) offering will be available as a technical preview, which means we’re proactively soliciting feedback from users for the first 30 days,” said the company in a statement.

According to the company, free and paid Zoom users worldwide can host up to 200 participants in an E2EE meeting on Zoom.

“We’re pleased to roll out Phase 1 of 4 of our E2EE offering, which provides robust protections to help prevent the interception of decryption keys that could be used to monitor meeting content,” said the company in a statement.

According to tech publication The Verge, Zoom has previously offered encryption for its calls, but the data was only encrypted between each meeting participant and Zoom’s servers, rather than being end-to-end encrypted between participants.

However, there will be certain features that will not be available to users if they opt for the E2EE version right now. The features excluded are "join before host, cloud recording, streaming, live transcription, Breakout Rooms, polling, 1:1 private chat, and meeting reactions".

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The company also said that participants can check if their meeting is E2EE by looking at the green shield logo in the upper left corner of their meeting screen with a padlock in the middle to indicate their meeting is using E2EE.