New terms of use for video conferencing software Zoom, which notably allowed it to use video call data from its users to train artificial intelligence (AI), have created an online outcry in recent days. The company set the record straight on Monday.
These terms of use, among other things, granted Zoom a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable license and all other required or necessary rights […] to process customer content and perform all acts relating to them […] in order to […] artificial intelligence machine learning
.
Another section of the terms stated that Zoom could use certain user data toIA (including for purposes of training and tuning algorithms and models)”,”text”:”machine learning or AI (including for purposes of training and tuning algorithms and models)” }}”>machine learning orIA (including for purposes of training and tuning algorithms and models).
Yves Jacquier, director of Ubisoft La Forge in Montreal, the company’s research and development team, is among many who have sounded the alarm (New window). On LinkedIn, he wrote: Without being an expert, this means that Zoom can use all the content (videos, discussions, messages…) to train an AI without any possibility of excluding itself from it.
For me, this is a serious red flag in terms of privacy and confidentiality.
he added.
Zoom corrects the shooting
On Monday, Zoom wanted to be reassuring in a blog post (New window) which clarifies its terms of use.
For AI, we do not use audio, video or text content for training our models without customer consent.
The videoconferencing software has recently included two free trial tools forIA : Zoom IQ Meeting Summary, which allows to generate meeting summaries, and Zoom IQ Team Chat Compose, which offers message composition functions.
In the blog post, the Zoom product manager describes that when a video conference administrator has enabled one of theseIA, a window appears for each person who joins the meeting. In this message, users have two choices: to accept that the data can be collected by Zoom for the purpose of training their models ofIAor leave the meeting.
IA. And even if you decide to share your data, it will not be used for training third-party models”,”text”:”Your content is used only to improve the performance and accuracy of these AI services. And even if you decide to share your data, it will not be used for training third-party models”}}”>Your content is used only to improve the performance and accuracy of these services.IA. And even if you decide to share your data, it will not be used for training third-party models.
says Smita Hashim.
The person responsible for administering a Zoom meeting can disable data sharing in account settings at any time, according to the company.
With information from Stack Diary, BBC, Engadget and Mashable
