"Zoom, video conferencing apps under privacy commissioner's microscope", 5 April 2020

Privacy authorities are poised to crack down on video and teleconferencing apps including Zoom that have soared in popularity during social distancing amid a global storm about privacy breaches.

Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk warned of "new risks to privacy", saying providers needed to be transparent about how they handle personal information, make their controls user-friendly and build in privacy and security "by default".

[...]

A Zoom spokesperson said a meeting host is only able to record private chats which they participate in; hosts cannot see private messages between non-host attendees of Zoom meetings. However, experts say the feature still poses a threat to privacy, as hosts could later share the data with others or upload it to the cloud.

[...]

A US-based Zoom spokesperson [said] ... "[i]f a host chooses to record a Zoom meeting to the cloud, only chats sent publicly (to everyone in the meeting) are saved," it said.

"[But] if a host chooses to record a Zoom meeting locally, then chats sent publicly, as well as any private chat exchanges that the host who chose to record the meeting participated in during session, are saved."