PSA: Zoom Updates their Terms of Service to Use User Content to Train AI

The short of it is that they can use user content such as your face and voice to train their AI without any way to opt-out.

Some of us may not have a choice in using Zoom, such being required to use it for their work. Unfortunately it can often take a lot of effort to convince an IT department. Still, I encourage all to speak up about this and raise the risks of continuing to use said software such as potentially leaking company property and secrets, since raising personal concerns are often disregarded.

This is how I found out: devlogic: "This can't end well. I've already sent emails to …" - hackers.town.

Here is a link to their actual Terms of Service: https://explore.zoom.us/en/terms/. It is under section §10.4(ii).

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Sigh. Time to start wearing a guy fawkes mask and use a voice changer on all my zoom meetings.

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Well, either 10.4 (ii) was the only thing read or the outcry helped, because after that section there is (in bold) " Notwithstanding the above, Zoom will not use audio, video or chat Customer Content to train our artificial intelligence models without your consent.". It may be that someone had a managerial brownpants moment and actually realised how badly the referenced section could be taken. That being said, it would have been nice to made clear just what else is left and what parts they are using to train those AIs, but I guess that’s not the point of legalese.

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Discussions on Hacker News:

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Or we have to change our clothing style at least to confuse facial recognition.

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