Zoom had a ‘record’ April in India despite Government’s red flag over privacy

Zoom’s fine run continued in April with the controversy-ridden video conferencing platform raking 131 million downloads worldwide, according to data released by Sensor Tower. To put it more simply, Zoom was the most downloaded “non-game” app in the world in April across both Android and iOS. Even more importantly, 18.2% of these downloads came from India, despite the Government’s red flag over its many privacy issues. The United States followed second accounting for 14.3% Zoom downloads during the same period.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had issued an advisory for Zoom users in India in April, to safeguard their ‘virtual’ meetings from prying eyes, deeming the video conferencing platform ‘unsafe.’ Note that the Government of India hasn’t banned Zoom in the country, though Government officials as well as those who may use it for work purposes, have been barred from video calling/conferencing through Zoom largely. The general public can still continue to use Zoom, like before, though the Government doesn’t necessarily advise them to do that. The Government’s advisory had come just days after the country’s nodal cyber security agency, CERT-In, raised an alarm about how Zoom was prone to cyberattacks.