Zoom has introduced revisions to its Terms of Service that have sparked significant controversy over user privacy.

It appears that Zoom may begin using calls between millions of users around the world to train AI products. The updated terms contain two standout sections, 10.2 and 10.4, which hold considerable implications for the extent to which Zoom can leverage user data. These segments specify Zoom’s entitlements to gather and utilise “Service Generated Data,” encompassing telemetry data, product usage information, diagnostic data, and analogous content collected in conjunction with users’ use of Zoom’s services or software.

Explicitly specified in Zoom’s revised policy is its exclusive ownership over Service Generated Data. This dominion extends to the company’s prerogatives to alter, disseminate, process, exchange, retain, and warehouse said data “for any purpose, within the limits and parameters stipulated by applicable law.”

“…You agree to grant and hereby grant Zoom a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license and all other rights required or necessary to redistribute, publish, import, access, use, store, transmit, review, disclose, preserve, extract, modify, reproduce, share, use, display, copy, distribute, translate, transcribe, create derivative works, and process Customer Content and to perform all acts with respect to the Customer Content, including AI and ML training and testing.”

Of particular concern is the overt declaration of the company’s right to employ this data for the training and enhancement of machine learning and artificial intelligence systems, with the inclusion of algorithm and model refinement. This particular clause raises the question of a lack of opt-out alternatives, something that is bound to fuel intense debate about user-generated consent and individual privacy.

Zoom justifies these measures as indispensable for delivering services to patrons, supporting the services, and enhancing its range of offerings including software and other products. Nevertheless, the implications inherent in these clauses are all-encompassing, particularly as they seemingly permit Zoom to harness customer data for any purpose associated with the activities or processes detailed in section 10.3.

Remarkably, Zoom has not issued any comments regarding these amendments yet. While Zoom’s motivations may center on elevating their platform and providing an improved experience, the extent and profundity of these adjustments are likely to cause disquiet among numerous users, particularly security and privacy advocates, thereby prompting inquiries into how their data is being leveraged.

For more software expertise and support, please contact our team today

Google have released aggregated smartphone location data which shows the UK under lockdown.

According to the newly published ‘Community Mobility Report’, in which Google GPS data from the location settings of Android phones is broken down by country, the UK has seen a dramatic drop in those going outside during March, as people stay in lockdown for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis.

‘Retail and Recreation’ visits, which includes restaurants, cafes, shopping centres, theme parks, museums, libraries and cinemas are down 85% against normal rates, and ‘Parks’ show a 53% decrease.

‘Transit Stations’ including public transport hubs are down an astonishing 75% as people remain at home rather than travelling.

‘Grocery & Pharmacy’ visits show a smaller decrease, at 46%, as people continue to shop sparingly for essentials.

However, Google GPS data varies across the UK – with Google warning readers not to compare rural and urban areas. Remoter parts of Scotland and Wales are less consistent both in lockdown severity but also available data to measure.

This measurement difficulty is something also noted by the Kings College Covid-19 sympton tracker app, which gathers self-reported data from across the UK and has risen rapidly up the Google Play and Apple App Store app charts in recent days.

Data for Devon suggests the lockdown is being observed slightly more strictly, with even lower rates of shopping and leisure trips being made compared to the UK average, but marginally higher attendance at workplaces and at public transport hubs.

You can find the Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Report for the UK and other countries here.

For IT Support and technical expertise, please contact Lineal today.

The UK’s biggest telecoms providers have agreed to remove data caps from Home broadband packages during the Coronavirus lockdown.

Although most UK home broadband packages now come with an ‘unlimited’ data allowance (subject to fair usage), many legacy products still enforce a data limit which may incur financial penalties if exceeded. Much like mobile data contracts, historically these were usually set at a specific monthly data usage, eg: 200GB.

The move follows discussions with the Government and telecoms regulator Ofcom, who are seeking to support vulnerable customers during the Coronavirus lockdown.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has also stated that the measure will be ‘effective immediately’ and help ‘people to stay connected whilst they stay at home.’

In particular, the BBC notes that many ISPs offer cut-price, limited broadband packages for those receiving benefits – although some limits on gaming, streaming and other high data-usage activities may remain in place for these packages.

Providers lifting data caps include BT (EE & Openreach), Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk, O2, Vodafone, Three, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear and KCOM.

For technology expertise and support, please contact Lineal today.

An online crowdfunding campaign has been launched to pay the mobile roaming bill of migrating eagles being tracked the Russian Wild Animal Rehabilitation Team at the Siberian Environmental Centre.

The thirteen tagged Steppe Eagles, being tracked via bi-hourly SMS messages containing GPS coordinates, ran up a hefty data roaming bill after migrating across countries as far afield as Egypt, Georgia and India.

One eagle, named ‘Min’ by researchers, unexpectedly flew from Kazakhstan via Iran, initially losing signal but then sending a backlog of messages at high rates, before crossing into Saudi Arabia and reaching as far South as the Yemen.

At a cost of 7,000 roubles (£85 per day), Min quickly used up the programme’s entire budget for tracking all 13 Eagles, forcing the Russian team of environmentalists to turn to social media for financial support.

Considered endangered by the IUCN, the Steppe Eagle once commonly reached as far afield the Ukraine, but researchers were unprepared for expensive data charges across the Middle East, which can be three-times higher than those in the Russian Federation.

The centre’s crowdfunding campaign has raised more than 250,000 roubles (roughly £3,000), although Russian telecoms provider MegaFon has since agreed to write-off the wayward Eagles’ data roaming bill debt as a gesture of goodwill.

Modern business mobile packages offer in-built policies to support data roaming limits across multiple countries worldwide, and to allow data ‘pooling’ across an entire organisation to offer some protection against any one individual breaking their data limit. Even if you migrate South for the Winter.

For Business Mobile expertise, please contact our team today.

UK data centres –

Microsoft’s Office 365 Team have announced the availability of multiple UK data centres for customer data.

The move follows increasingly strict rules on data compliance in the financial, security, health and public sectors – with more cloud IT users looking to ensure their data remains safely located in the UK.

Prospective customers considering the implications of Office 365 are able to view the locations of Microsoft’s uk data centres with this online ‘Where Is My Data?’ map, which now displays both the additional data centres and the Microsoft cloud services they support, in both London and Durham, with a third site anticipated for Cardiff.

Office365 and Azure Users will also have the ability to ‘re-locate’ their data from regional data centres (in most cases based within mainland Europe) to the new UK service.

In addition to the security and legal advantages for protecting sensitive data, cloud users of Office 365 are likely to benefit from lower costs, online backups and collaborative, remote access to files.

For now, the ability to re-locate Office365 or Azure data to the UK is likely to be restricted, with priority expected to be given to high-profile UK public sector customers including NHS Trusts and the Ministry of Defence – the latter mirroring many customers belated move to the cloud, upgrading legacy on-site systems in use since 2005.

The new infrastructure has been widely praised, with Microsoft clearly investing heavily in addressing the doubts many have about moving their IT to the cloud; reducing Office365 downtime to just 4 hours per year, and now re-locating data within country of origin for compliance with a high standard of data protection.

Contact Lineal for advice on moving to the cloud, or for a free trial of Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium, click here.

Education tracking software LearnSprout has been bought by Apple, in a purchase expected to extend the computing giant’s reach into the education sector.

American software platform LearnSprout, already used across 42 states in over 2500 schools, is an analytics dashboard that allows teachers to monitor pupil’s performance and results, attendance, student health and more.

LearnSprout’s developers argue that by aggregating data, schools can help study trends for promoting better teaching, improving readiness for higher education and ensure a more efficient use of resources.

This is the second announcement in recent weeks about Apple investing heavily in technology for the education sector, following the January launch of Apple’s Education package and iPad modifications designed for classroom use. It’s unlikely to be the last.

For education sector IT support – talk to Lineal today: 01271 375999

Bloxx to become part of Akamai Technologies

Web filtering provider Bloxx have announced that they will be ceasing support for their products and services, following a shock email from the company’s Chief Executive.

The move comes as part of a cash deal takeover bid by cloud services firm Akamai Technologies, announced on 2^nd November 2015, and will see an end to the sale of all Bloxx products.

Bloxx has a good reputation in the UK and beyond for delivering a strong feature set in their appliances that are used to filter online content delivered in sensitive environments. Their products are commonly implemented by educators, healthcare providers, local authorities and businesses.

Although existing contracts will be honoured, those who have invested in physical Bloxx hardware may well find the lifespans are now limited, with little indication of whether Akamai will offer suitable replacements.

Bloxx’s impressive record has drawn the attention of national media before, with the Edinburgh based-company receiving hate mail from teenagers unable to access restricted websites on school computers even with a range of proxies.

With online security stories dominating the news in recent weeks, wider awareness of the need for web, social media and email monitoring is likely to only increase demand for such products. It remains to be seen whether interested parties will consider a cloud-based offering from Akamai to be sufficient, especially when it comes to security and bandwidth management.

Need help with online content filtering and network security for your organisation? Speak to Lineal today: call 01271 375999 or email [email protected]

FSB Chairman for North Devon, Mike Matthews, spent 25 minutes with Prime Minister David Cameron, Agricultural Minister Owen Patterson and PPC Peter Heaton-Jones, guiding them around the FSB tent at the North Devon Show on Wednesday 7th August.  They discussed problems for small business owners and the role of the Federation of Small Businesses.

David Cameron and Mike Matthews can be seen talking to Grace Rodgers at her table displaying products from her Bideford company – On The Horizon.

The FSB show tent was one of 2 chosen by the Prime Minister at the North Devon show yesterday.  Mike Matthews, who is Managing Director of IT company Lineal Software Solutions, had organised the tent to showcase a variety of North Devon Businesses and their products / services.  Mike took the PM and other VIPs around the displays, introducing them to the FSB members and highlighting the problems faced by small businesses in North Devon today.

Mike Matthews said “It has been 25 years since I first set up Lineal so that I could concentrate on the development of my business software SQLWorks.  The rural location of North Devon has its benefits, but manufacturing problems, increasing employment issues and the slow roll out of superfast broadband have all been seen as barriers to growth by the FSB members.”

At his party’s spring conference, David Cameron said “There’s only one strategy for growth we can have now and that is rolling up our sleeves and doing everything possible to make it easier for businesses to grow, to invest, to take people on….Back small firms. Boost enterprise. Be on the side of everyone in this country who wants to create jobs, and wealth and opportunity.”

Agricultural Minister, Owen Patterson, also accompanied David Cameron and Mike Matthews.  His interest was in the rural location and nature of many local businesses.  They discussed the obstacles presented to them, and how they are overcome with help from organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses.