It is easy to blame us, but our platform is safe: Zoom India head

COVID-19-led lockdown forced lakhs of students to stay indoors, and classroom lessons were replaced by digital learning. While this led to a surge in demand for video platforms, the process was fraught with challenges over privacy and security as several incidents across the country showed.

Not surprsingly, it was Zoom that came under much of the spotlight and scrutiny.  After all, its global traffic had spiked to 300 million daily participants by April 2020, from 10 million in December. Though the company doesn't share India-specific numbers, the industry buzz is that the platform has seen a similar rush in traffic here, too.

But Sameer Raje, India Head, Zoom Communications, strongly rebuts any claims of the platform lacking security features. In an interaction with Moneycontrol, Raje reiterated that the platform is absolutely safe.

“It is very easy to blame Zoom. But we have all the security features intact and it is the teachers who need to use them,” says Raje, who joined Zoom in April 2019.

While he did not share the exact numbers for India, Raje said that over 100,000 schools across 25 countries are using the Zoom platform. In March, he explained that Zoom removed the 40-minute time limit for free basic accounts for schools in India so that daily lessons could continue online.

In a freewheeling chat, the industry veteran who earlier worked at Cisco, Microsoft  and IBM, shared his thoughts on the boom of video platforms, detailed how Zoom is handholding schools to ensure the safety of children, and explained why competition is not new for the company.

Lessons over Zoom

Raje explained that Zoom operates in remote locations across India as well. He said that there were hiccups when the lockdown was announced because teachers and students had never used digital platforms for daily lessons.

“The educators were not trained to handle e-classrooms. Raje said that Zoom is working with a lot of parents and teachers to offer them coaching and guidance on how to use the platform.

“We also have the ‘Train the Trainers’ kind of programme. On our website, a lot of blog posts and necessary information on how to conduct virtual classrooms are available. We are hosting specific webinars where teachers can join and or go through the recorded sessions and keep themselves abreast of the latest developments,” he added.

Raje added that whenever any school or educational institution signs up with the platform, Zoom also has handholding sessions and training for teachers.

There is a subscription service for schools, and Raje said that it is at a 60 percent discount compared to the other institutions. As per the Zoom website, a Pro plan costs $14.99 per month (Rs 1,130 approximately).

Raje said that bandwidth is one of the USPs for Zoom and claimed that it would work even in situations of packet loss. This refers to a situation where the data is lost in the process of being carried across a computer network and occurs due to low connectivity.

“On Zoom, even if you have 50,000 participants, it just works. It just works. Even at 45 percent packet loss on internet, our platform will work,” he added.

Privacy and safety concerns for students

Raje reiterated that nobody can enter a Zoom meeting without either getting the invite or accessing a password.

“Teachers need to know how to safeguard themselves and the basic thing is to have a password-protected meeting. It also needs to be ensured that students don’t share meeting IDs with their friends or those from other schools,” he added.

Complaints of unauthorised persons attending meetings

When it comes to unauthorised persons entering Zoom meetings, Raje explained that this could happen only if no password is set for a meeting.

“There are some bad actors out there who are going to play some pranks and will keep on punching on meeting numbers randomly. This is because they have the software for it,” he said. If there is a password or a waiting room feature, individuals who are not supposed to be part of the meeting won’t be able to attend.

Zoom's response to security concerns

Raje said that in cases where institutions have reported an outsider entry, Zoom has worked to identify the trespasser and how they were able to enter the meeting.

“In certain cases, the matter was reported to certain law enforcement agencies and we have worked with these agencies,” he added.

Raje added that the institute themselves can report a user directly to Zoom and the ID of that particular individual can be disabled. Children under 16 years of age need parental consent to sign up, and, for younger students who are 5-7 years old, the video could be disabled.

Government's views on Zoom

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had issued an advisory in May talking about how to prevent security breaches on Zoom. This was perceived as a signal from the government against the usage of Zoom.

However, Raje said that it only talks about how to use Zoom in a safe manner and how one should set passwords and lock the meetings.

“The government is only talking about the best practices that need to be followed. While it is easy to blame Zoom for everything, one needs to understand that cyber crime has gone up by 600 percent in this world owing to COVID-19. There are a lot of bad people waiting to hack into your private meetings. And only meeting hosts can keep it secure,” he added.

Raje said that if all security protocols are followed, including keeping the meeting ID a secret, setting passwords for meetings and also having waiting rooms, it would be secure to use Zoom.

New competitors in India

Raje said that Zoom has experienced intense competition since it was established in 2011, and added that it is yet to become the platform of choice for millions of participants around the world.

“We know what it takes to become the unified communications platform we are today, including the immense amount of work and focus required to create our frictionless user experience, sophisticated security, and scalable architecture,” he added.

In India, Zoom competes with Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Blue Jeans, Cisco Webex and the newly launched JioMeet.

The global financial numbers of Zoom

While Raje did not share any financial details, exchange filings by Zoom globally (Nasdaq-listed Zoom Video Communications) showed that Zoom had a revenue of $328.2 million in the February-April quarter (2020) compared to $122 million in the year-ago period.

As of April 30, 2020, 75 percent of Zoom’s revenue came from North and South America. Asia Pacific contributed 9 percent of the revenue while the rest came from Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Net profit zoomed to $27 million in the February 1-April 30 period compared to $0.2 million a year ago.

At the end of the three months ended April 30, Zoom had 265,400 customers, with an employee base of more than 10 people. A year ago, this figure was 58,500. Zoom only discloses business customer numbers of 10-plus employee firms.