Zoom Rolls-out End-to-End Encryption for Its Paid and Free Users

After months of wait, Zoom, a video meeting app, has finally made its new end-to-end encryption (E2EE) feature available to users globally. This feature is available for both free and paid customers for meetings with up to 200 participants.  

On Monday, Zoom said that this is an optional feature that is available immediately as a technical preview. This means that the company is proactively soliciting feedback from all its users for the next 30 days.  

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Jason Lee, Zoom Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), said “We’re very proud to bring Zoom’s new end-to-end encryption to Zoom users globally today.” Adding “This has been a highly requested feature from our customers, and we’re excited to make this a reality.”  

The new security feature has been made available on Zoom desktop client versions for the Android app, 5.4.0 for Mac and PC, and Zoom Rooms. However, the Zoom iOS app is still pending approval from Apple App Store.  

Nobody except each participant to have access to the encryption keys that are used to encrypt the meeting not even Zoom’s meeting servers when users enable E2EE for their meetings, the company said. 

This feature can be enabled by account admins in their web dashboard at the account, user, and group level. Also, it can be locked at the account or group level.   

If it is enabled, the host can toggle on and off end-to-end encryption for a meeting depending upon the level of security.  

In phase one, meeting participants will be able to join from the Zoom mobile app, desktop client, or Zoom Rooms for encryption-enabled meetings.  

The company first announced its plans to build an end-to-end-encrypted meeting option in May.  

 On May 22, after releasing the draft design of the platform’s, the company said that it has engaged with civil liberties organizations, its users, encryption experts, child safety advocates, government representatives, and others to gather their feedback on this new end-to-end encryption feature.  

 Earlier, the company was sued by one of its shareholders who complain that Zoom failed to disclose some vulnerabilities. He also claimed that the services did not provide end-to-end encryption to its users.  

 Zoom hopes to gather some input from customers as a technical preview of their own experiences with its end-to-end encryption.