Zoom changes its terms of service to feed its AI with its customers' data

During Pandemic we had the opportunity to observe the vertical rise in the use of video conferencing tools, and Zoom was among the names on the crest of that wave.

Today, everyone is betting on Artificial Intelligence and LLM models, and anyone with enough usable data doesn't want to miss this opportunity.

This is why Zoom changed its terms and conditions of service, informing its customers that the data in their possession (meetings, board meetings, video conferences) will be used for training its AI to "offer an even better service to its customers". Such as, for example, the recently introduced 'IQ Meeting Summary' service that enables the creation of meeting minutes.

After a high level of concern raised by both researchers and law firms, the company responded with a blog post in which it clarified that, for the sake of transparency, it had informed its customers of the changes to allow them to 'opt-out' of the service.

The changes to the terms of service are not only confusing because of the way they are described, but also raise many concerns. Among the most relevant is the fact that 'Service Generated Data' (or SGD) grants the company the authority to access, modify, process, share and retain such data for any purpose in accordance with applicable laws [...], and the ability to use such data to power and refine its AI and machine learning algorithms (Section 10.4).

This change, as well as those introduced by other platforms, confirms the need to carefully analyse the terms and conditions of use of cloud services that are selected and used in companies, especially based on the type of use (just think of those companies that used the platform for board meetings, patent research and development meetings and the like).