Zoom develops technology to block users within a country's borders

American videoconference service provider Zoom Video Communications has said it was developing technology that would enable it to block users within a country’s borders as per the request of local government or authorities if they found any illegal activity. However, the conversations for participants outside of those borders would be protected, it said.

In a blog, the company said it had been shutting down the meetings, instead of blocking participants by country. “We currently do not have the capability to block participants by country. We could have anticipated this need. While there would have been significant repercussions, we also could have kept the meetings running,” it said in the blog.

We’ve heard the concerns surrounding Lee Cheuk-yan, Wang Dan, and Zhou Fengsuo’s accounts. We’ve thought a lot about this. Here are the facts and what we’re doing about it: https://t.co/XGzJD5raSX

— Zoom (@zoom_us) June 11, 2020

The announcement came after the company said that it had suspended or terminated a host account in Hong Kong and two accounts in the US as per the request of China. “We shut down the meetings instead of blocking the participants by country,” it said.

“Going forward Zoom will not allow requests from the Chinese government to impact anyone outside of mainland China,” the company said. “We are improving our global policy to respond to these types of requests. We will outline this policy as part of our transparency report, to be published by June 30, 2020,” it added in the blog.