Technology: Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx raise data privacy concerns

The privacy policies of Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx have been analyzed by consumer reports. The discovery shows they may be collecting more data than many people realize.

Market Protection doesn't say such software is dangerous to use. (Indeed, a recent Mozilla study found that almost every major video conferencing system meets basic security standards.) Yet by subscribing to these services' privacy policies, you are giving corporations such as Google and Microsoft access to a variety of personal information.

According to the report, all three companies reserve the right to obtain information from the calls, including how long a call lasts, who participates in the call, and who involved in the IP addresses.

As the world has become more reliant on videoconferencing tools, people have also started to scrutinize the security measures and privacy policies of these services.

And while not as alarming as the security holes in Zoom that came to light in April, leading to a host of “Zoombombing” and other concerns, it’s still worth being aware of the data that Microsoft, Google, and Cisco can collect.

None of the listed companies went into detailed information about what sort of data is actually being collected or how it is being used. Market Reports states that the data collected here may be combined with information from other sources to create personal profiles of users and their use patterns, or even possibly using videos for items like facial recognition systems for training.

All three companies have told Consumer Reports that they only create video recordings or transcripts when participants request them by recording the meetings and promise the recordings will not be "directly" used for advertising.