Zoom Video Communications Inc. will freeze feature development for 90 days to focus on enhancing security and privacy for users, Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan announced in a blog post today.

The move is a response to a string of privacy issues that were discovered in the popular video conferencing service recently. Yuan wrote that he is “deeply sorry” and detailed a number of other steps Zoom plans to take in a bid to improve how it handles user data.

Besides redirecting development resources to enhancing security and privacy, Zoom will also run a series of penetration tests to uncover potential vulnerabilities in its service. The company furthermore plans to conduct a review with outside security experts, as well as a group of users, to “understand and ensure the security of all of our new consumer use cases.”

The recent row around Zoom’s privacy practices has revolved mainly around its handling of consumer data. Zoom, which originally designed its service with enterprises in mind, has seen a massive influx of nonbusiness users as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The New York attorney general’s office last week raised concerns that the service may be misusing the data of students who have started using it for online learning. Today, Zoom suspended an integration with LinkedIn’s enterprise sales data tool after it was reported that the integration could be used to match meeting participants, including consumers, to their LinkedIn profiles without their knowledge.

Recent days have also seen researchers discover multiple vulnerabilities in Zoom’s desktop apps that are now fixed. 

Zoom will carry out its plan to enhance security and privacy alongside a number of steps meant to provide better engagement with the public about its data protection practices. The company intends to make unspecified improvements to its bug bounty program, create a chief information security officer council and prepare a transparency report, while Yuan will start hosting a weekly webinar to share security and privacy updates. 

The action plan addresses some of the concerns raised by the New York attorney general’s last week. Additionally, Zoom’s broad, multipoint response to its recent privacy controversies could help the company score good points with any other government body that might be looking into its privacy policies. 

Zoom’s active user base ballooned from a maximum of about 10 million active daily users in December to a peak of more than 200 million this March. Other popular communications tools, including Slack, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Systems Inc.’s WebEx, have experienced rapid growth as well. 

Photo: Zoom