SC seeks govt reply on plea to ban Zoom
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday sought the responses of the central government and Zoom Video Communications on a plea seeking a ban on the use of the Zoom videoconferencing software, citing privacy and security concerns.
The petitioner, Harsh Chugh, a part-time tutor, said the app should be banned for both official and personal purposes until a law addressing data security issues is in place.
“Issue notice returnable in four weeks”, the bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde said.
In April, the home ministry issued an advisory stating that the app, which government officials have been barred from using, was “not safe” for use by private individuals.The government’s missive came after the national cybersecurity agency – Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In) – flagged the vulnerability of the app, being used by tens of thousands of professionals working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Officials pointed out at the time that the NIC (National Informatics Centre) platform was being used for most government video conferences. The CyCord portal was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2018 for sharing all cyber-related matters among law enforcement agencies, government organisations and other stakeholders.
Zoom, which is owned by the US-based Zoom Video Communications, enables video conferences and online chat facilities. The use of the platform is free for video conferences with up to 100 participants within a 40-minute time limit. For longer or larger conferences with more features, paid subscriptions are available.
“Poor privacy and security of the application have enabled the hackers to get access to the meeting, classes, and conferences being conducted online through this application. Zoom is reported to have a bug that can be abused intentionally to leak information of users to third parties,” the plea said.
The petition pointed out that the Zoom application saw exponential growth in its users from 10 million in December 2019 to 200 million in March 2020 due to the pandemic-induced lockdown restrictions.
The petitioner alleged that the application has made false claims that its calls are end-to-end encrypted.
The petitioner pointed out that various high courts across the country are still using the application, despite the MHA advisory. “The Bombay HC recently decided to live stream hearing on a trial basis. The bench of Justice GS Patel made the hearing of listed matters on April 9 publicly accessible . ... Similarly, the Kerala High Court has also started live-streaming of court hearings through this application”, the plea stated.