Earlier in the month, Zoom mentioned that he was working on a new encryption system as part of his efforts to improve the security of the service. An end-to-end encryption that will only be deployed on the accounts of paying users.
An announcement that caused controversy and discomfort among users, and that was increased by the comments of the CEO of Zoom on the reasons for this decision. However, this will be in the past, as they announced that they are reversing their initial plan.
So Zoom’s current decision is to offer end-to-end encryption to all users, yes, those with free accounts as well. So it will be implemented as a free add-on feature for everyone.
End-to-end encryption will be optional, and can be enabled by hosts before initiating a call. However, they should be aware that this will impede the operation of other features of the service. It does not refer to the basic functions of the meetings that can be customized from the Application Settings, but rather it relates to the support for certain types of connections.
On the other hand, a requirement for free users who want to implement E2EE encryption is that they will have to go through a small process to verify their account, which includes providing additional information and verification of the phone number. And as long as it is not activated, the accounts will continue to have the current AES-256-GCM encryption.
Keep in mind that the end-to-end encryption that Zoom promises is not available yet, as it first has to go through a testing phase that begins in July.
