Today, India joined a long list of governments who have restricted the use of the video calling platform Zoom over security concerns. A circular sent by the country’s home department said Zoom is not secure and it’s “not for use by government employees for official purposes.”
According to the circular, this follows advisories issued by The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) regarding the platform in the past couple of months. It also dictates guidelines for safe personal usage of the video conferencing platform.
MHA issues advisory, says Zoom not secure video conferencing platform for private individuals. Mentions guidelines for those who still want to use it. pic.twitter.com/b900JOw1Si
— Prasar Bharati News Services (@PBNS_India) April 16, 2020
We’ve reached out to Zoom for a comment, and we’ll update the story if we hear back.
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[Read: India is offering local tech companies $130K to build an encrypted Zoom clone]
India’s advisory is not entirely surprising as it’s been pushing officials to use indigenous solutions.
Earlier this week, the government announced a project for local tech companies to build an encrypted Zoom clone for $130,000. In line with that, News18 reported that the center has asked all ministers to use a conferencing app developed by the National Informatics Center (NIC).
Last week, the US senate reportedly barred Zoom after Germany and Taiwan banned government employees from using the software for internal proceedings.
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