Taiwan's government bans official use of Zoom, days after the firm admitted to 'mistakenly' routing some calls through China
- The Taiwanese government has banned all official use of Zoom, dealing yet another blow to the videoconferencing service.
- Zoom has faced myriad security concerns in the past week, including worries about how it encrypts user data; the potential theft of user data; leaked email addresses, and calls being routed through China.
- Taiwan has fraught relations with China, which claims the island is part of its own territory.
- Zoom did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Taiwan's government has banned all official use of Zoom, dealing yet another blow to the video-conferencing service.
In a statement published Tuesday, and translated via Google, the Taiwanese government's executive branch said that "if agencies must hold remote videoconferencing for business needs, they should not use products with security concerns such as Zoom."
"At present, all major international information service providers provide free software during the epidemic, such as Google or Microsoft. Under the security risk assessment, [these] can be considered for use," it continued.
Zoom has faced myriad security concerns in the past several days. These include worries about how it encrypts user data; the potential theft of user data; leaked email addresses, and calls and encryption keys being routed through China.
The latter is likely to be of concern to Taiwan, which has a fraught relationship with China. The island's independence is not universally recognized, and Beijing claims Taiwan is part of its own territory. Taiwan's democratically elected government is officially known as the Republic of China.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan late on Friday admitted that some call data had "mistakenly" been routed through China.
Last week, Elon Musk's SpaceX also banned its staff from using Zoom over security and privacy concerns.
Zoom did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.