From April 18th, paying Zoom users will be able to choose through which data center region their traffic will be routed. Free users will not be able to choose a specific server, but Zoom promises that data from this group will never run through Chinese servers.
Paying customers will be able to choose directly in which data center region their data will be transferred as of 18 April. Zoom currently has eight regions: the United States, Canada, Europe, India, Australia, China, Latin America and Japan/Hong Kong. Free users will not be able to choose any other region, although the company believes that data traffic will never pass through China. In a blog post, the company writes that this update will provide ‘the best quality’.
It is the latest security update Zoom has introduced in recent weeks to make the popular service safe for users again. The upgrade is a response to concerns about data being sent via Chinese servers. Critics previously indicated that this was quite a security risk. Zoom previously claimed that no data was being routed through China, but Zoom CEO Eric Yuan later admitted that video calls were being routed through China after the company quickly had to meet the huge demand from the public. The problem is apparently solved, according to Yuan.
Security risks
A few months ago, Zoom became one of the most essential applications for people who are forced to work from home due to the corona crisis. But the popularity of the video service is overshadowed by a list of privacy violations, security risks and other inconveniences. Worldwide, the use of Zoom is already banned by large companies such as Google, NASA, SpaceX, Tesla, but also by the German State Department and the U.S. Senate.
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