India says video conference app Zoom is ‘not safe’

India said today Zoom is 'not a safe platform' as the video conference service surges in popularity in many nations including the world's second largest smartphone market as billions of people remain stuck at home due to the coronavirus crisis.

"Zoom is a not a safe platform," the Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord) of India's ministry of home affairs said in a 16-page advisory. The advisory also includes guidelines for users who still wish to use Zoom for their private communications.

The move comes as several companies including Google, Apple, NASA, and Tesla have urged - or warned - their employees from using Zoom, which has amassed over 200 million users. German and Taiwan have also banned the use of Zoom in their nations. But the firm, with market cap of over $40 billion, has also come under scrutiny - and become subject of a lawsuit - after several of its security and privacy lapses emerged in recent weeks.

MHA issues advisory, says Zoom not secure video conferencing platform for private individuals. Mentions guidelines for those who still want to use it. pic.twitter.com/b900JOw1Si

- Prasar Bharati News Services (@PBNS_India) April 16, 2020

Zoom has been trending in India in recent weeks, too, in a surprise as enterprise services rarely get traction with consumers in the country. Several Indian ministers in India have also tweeted pictures that showed they were using Zoom in recent weeks.

The app is being downloaded more than 450,000 times a day for the last two weeks in India, research firm Apptopia told TechCrunch. This week, India also started a competition for startups to develop a secure conferencing app.

Zoom chief executive has Eric S. Yuan has apologized for the security lapses and pledged to prioritize focus on users' privacy and security over development of new features. The firm recently also recently hired former Facebook security officer Alex Stamos as an advisor.