Zoom Is The Subject of Class Action Lawsuit Claiming Sharing Data with Third Parties without Consent

On March 31, 2020, a class action lawsuit was filed in a California court against Zoom Video Communications Inc. (Zoom), the video-conferencing solution that has been a useful alternative for business meetings as more people work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, for allegedly sharing data with third parties without appropriate user consent.

The suit alleges that upon the installation or opening of the Zoom App, “Zoom collects the personal information of its users and discloses, without adequate notice or authorization, this personal information to third parties, including Facebook, Inc., invading the privacy of millions of users”. The allegations come after a report published the week before the filing of the suit that the iOS version of the video-conference mobile application sends analytics to Facebook, Inc. (Facebook) for users, including those who do not have a Facebook account. While not an uncommon practice for applications that allow logging in using Facebook credentials, Zoom did not explicitly disclose the sharing of this data in its privacy policy. Zoom has since altered its iOS app to stop the sending of data to Facebook.

The plaintiff, Robert Cullen, brought the action on behalf of himself and as a class action, seeking both statutory and punitive damages for violation of the California Consumer Privacy Act, the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and California’s Unfair Competition Law, in addition to the common law torts of negligence, invasion of privacy and unjust enrichment.

The lawsuit comes at a time when the California-based company has been under public scrutiny for a plethora of security and privacy mishaps. The company has not yet filed a response but CEO Eric S. Yuan posted a detailed blog addressing the concerns and stating that the company will pause feature updates for ninety days to put resources toward fixing the company’s privacy and security issues.

Summary By: Hashim Ghazi