Colombia’s data privacy watchdog probes Zoom
Colombia’s Superintendency of Industry and Commerce is investigating privacy concerns regarding the conference call app Zoom, use of which has increased globally during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The authority said it will be looking into whether Zoom complies with Colombian regulations regarding security and restricted access to confidential information.
Law firm Holland & Knight’s Bogotá-based partner Danilo Romero Raad (pictured) was interviewed for a Global Data Review (GDR) story, and in which he discusses the investigation, which he says was long-expected, and explaines the potential penalties if regulators find the company does not comply with privacy laws.
“The Colombian authority has been strengthening its supervision of matters relating to the processing of personal data,” Romero said. “In the last year, it has been appreciated that it is being stricter with privacy issues.”
“In the event of failure to comply with the orders given, the authority may impose fines of up to 2,000 minimum monthly wages or may order the temporary or permanent foreclosure of the company,” he said.
Zoom told GDR that it “takes user security extremely seriously. A large number of global institutions ranging from the world’s largest financial services companies and telecommunications providers, to non-governmental organizations and government agencies, including across Latin Americs, have done exhaustive security reviews of our user, network and datacenter layers and continue to use Zoom for most or all of their unified communications needs”.
