Not just Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams also collect more user data than expected: Report

These companies however said that user data collected is never used for advertising.

Apps like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Cisco’s Webex have a similar privacy policy in terms of user data. (Canva)

Video conferencing apps have gained one of the highest users and user activity during this lockdown period. Apps like Zoom despite having security issues, are used extensively mostly because users don't have any other choice. Now a new report highlights that other video conferencing apps like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Cisco's Webex also collect a good amount of user data.

Consumer Reports found that these video conferencing share a similar privacy policy albeit minor differences. In terms of data collection, these companies have access to information like the duration of the meeting, participants in the video call and their IP addresses as well. And with users agreeing to the privacy policies of these apps, they're basically granting permission.

User data collected during these video conferences can be used to build consumer profiles and train facial recognition systems as well, the report added. More data like audio can be accessed when users ask for a transcription of the meeting. In response to this, the companies said that they record videos or audios only when the user presses the record button, and also that none of these is "directly used for advertising".

These companies responded to Consumer Reports saying that "privacy is a basic human right" and that they "never rent or sell" their customers' information. These companies did not refute the findings either. But details on what user data is collected and for what purpose hasn't been specified though.