Video conferencing company Zoom is planning to take users’ video calls and use them to train artificial intelligence software. In the new Zoom TOS update, the company revealed plans to use everyone’s data to train its AI algorithms.
In the software’s revised terms of service, a new clause claims that everyone who uses the software must agree to have their data, such as voice and video calls, shared and stored to power future AI programs.
“You consent to Zoom’s access, use, collection, creation, modification, distribution, processing, sharing, maintenance, and storage of Service Generated Data for any purpose, to the extent and in the manner permitted under applicable Law, including for the purpose of product and service development, marketing, analytics, quality assurance, machine learning or artificial intelligence (including for the purposes of training and tuning of algorithms and models), training, testing,” reads the new Terms of Service.
Currently, any user of the Zoom video call software must agree to the new terms before using the software. Furthermore, there is no option to opt out of the data scraping, meaning every user must consent to being used to train artificial intelligence software.
Zoom has already been the face of numerous artificial intelligence controversies in the past. Last year, Zoom revealed its Emotion Analyser AI that it pitched to be used on school children. This artificial intelligence software was aimed to detect the emotions of school children and report them to teachers.
Unsurprisingly, this level of monitoring children with AI that could suffer from dataset biases was largely protested by human rights groups. The software was blasted as being discriminatory, manipulative, dangerous and “based on assumptions that all people use the same facial expressions, voice patterns, and body language”.
While not confirmed, the new Zoom TOS changes could potentially allow the company to take video footage of children using the software to continue the development of its emotion analyser as well as other AI software.